The Legislative Audit Bureau has reviewed the Department of Natural Resource’s attempt to shrink the deer herd in the area where Chronic Wasting Disease was first discovered, and the bureau isn’t impressed. Despite $32.3 million and 58 full-time staff, hunters are killing fewer deer, and the herd is getting bigger.
Is it all the DNR’s fault? No. However, the DNR should review the experience in the CWD zone and ponder whether simpler hunting rules would be effective in culling the herd statewide.
First, a partial defense of the DNR. CWD first broke out in western Dane County, an increasingly suburbanized and subdivided area of the state. It’s hard enough controlling the herd where farms and fields predominate; it’s even more difficult where residential properties and posted land overwhelm the landscape. And despite the failures in the eradication zone, CWD has been largely contained; not a single case of CWD has been identified in Monroe County. Perhaps the DNR has been lucky, or perhaps the ban on deer feeding and baiting in 24 counties has been effective. Either way, the spread of CWD hasn’t come close to biologists’ worst fears.
However, the failure to control the herd -- and not just in CWD areas -- indicates a new approach to hunting rules are needed. State Sen. Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center), was right when he said, “We need to get back to making deer hunting rules simple to understand and uniform from year to year.”
There is a precedent for what Schultz proposes; the DNR recently streamlined and simplified rules for trout fishing. While Wisconsin’s diverse landscape makes it impossible to have the same rules everywhere in the state (the landscape of northeastern Monroe County differs substantially from areas south of Tomah), the DNR should seriously study whether Wisconsin’s maze of 82 deer hunting units can be consolidated. Monroe County, for example, lies within eight different management units. Can that be reduced to two? And can management units more closely follow county borders?
It’s inevitable that DNR biologists and wildlife managers with such extensive knowledge of Wisconsin wildlife and topography would seek to craft perfect hunting rules for every acre of the state. However, the benefits of such management practices must be weighed against the practical need for rules that most hunters can understand and support. Deer hunting in Wisconsin has problems that go far beyond complex regulations, but a simpler rule structure would be a positive step toward getting hunters into the woods, both in the CWD zone and beyond.
Is it all the DNR’s fault? No. However, the DNR should review the experience in the CWD zone and ponder whether simpler hunting rules would be effective in culling the herd statewide.
First, a partial defense of the DNR. CWD first broke out in western Dane County, an increasingly suburbanized and subdivided area of the state. It’s hard enough controlling the herd where farms and fields predominate; it’s even more difficult where residential properties and posted land overwhelm the landscape. And despite the failures in the eradication zone, CWD has been largely contained; not a single case of CWD has been identified in Monroe County. Perhaps the DNR has been lucky, or perhaps the ban on deer feeding and baiting in 24 counties has been effective. Either way, the spread of CWD hasn’t come close to biologists’ worst fears.
However, the failure to control the herd -- and not just in CWD areas -- indicates a new approach to hunting rules are needed. State Sen. Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center), was right when he said, “We need to get back to making deer hunting rules simple to understand and uniform from year to year.”
There is a precedent for what Schultz proposes; the DNR recently streamlined and simplified rules for trout fishing. While Wisconsin’s diverse landscape makes it impossible to have the same rules everywhere in the state (the landscape of northeastern Monroe County differs substantially from areas south of Tomah), the DNR should seriously study whether Wisconsin’s maze of 82 deer hunting units can be consolidated. Monroe County, for example, lies within eight different management units. Can that be reduced to two? And can management units more closely follow county borders?
It’s inevitable that DNR biologists and wildlife managers with such extensive knowledge of Wisconsin wildlife and topography would seek to craft perfect hunting rules for every acre of the state. However, the benefits of such management practices must be weighed against the practical need for rules that most hunters can understand and support. Deer hunting in Wisconsin has problems that go far beyond complex regulations, but a simpler rule structure would be a positive step toward getting hunters into the woods, both in the CWD zone and beyond.