Rules for deer seasons
March 24th, 2006 by Administrator
Rules for deer seasons remain up in the air - State Natural Resources Board members approved a list of 75 deer management units for either Zone T or earn-a-buck deer hunts Wednesday, but it’s far from a done deal.
On Tuesday, Rep. Scott Gunderson, R-Waterford, introduced a bill he hopes the Legislature will put on a fast track for implementation this fall.
Gunderson’s plan, among other things, eliminates earn-a-buck and the early Zone T antlerless hunt while creating a separate muzzleloader hunting license and a four-day, antlerless-only muzzleloader season the second weekend in October.
In addition, hunters would get two free antlerless tags for use in herd control units with each license.
If passed, that would mean hunters who buy bow, gun and muzzleloader licenses would have three buck tags. Muzzleloaders could use theirs only in the traditional 10-day hunt that follows the regular nine-day firearm season.
Confused? There’s more: Rep. Jeff Mursau, R-Crivitz, introduced a bill that would give an additional either-sex carcass tag to landowners who own at least 40 acres in one parcel or allow a public snowmobile trail to pass through their land.
Should both bills pass, thousands of hunters could have four tags allowing them to shoot antlered bucks.
“This proposed solution will pacify some and irritate others without improving herd control,” said retired Department of Natural Resources deer researcher Keith McCaffery of Rhinelander. “It also introduces complexity at the very time simplification is sought.
“I can’t imagine the confusion and cost that will result if the bill passes and is expected to be implemented in 2006.”
Herb Behnke of Shawano, who stepped down from the state Natural Resources Board last month after 20 years of service, said science and experience should prevail in policy decisions within the DNR and NRB.
“Unfortunately, the golden rule interferes with facts based on science and experience,” Behnke said. “Those who have the gold make the rules. That is the basis for many political decisions.”
Gunderson’s bill also would provide for a free youth antlerless-only firearm deer season the second weekend of October, a new vendor issuance fee of 50 cents per transaction for the carcass tags and funnel the revenue from the new muzzleloader-only license into the wildlife damage and abatement fund.
Joe Polasek, the DNR’s budget director, estimates Gunderson’s bill would cost the DNR nearly $700,000.
“Given some of the unknowns, like the number of different deer- hunting license types actually sold, it is difficult to precisely estimate the impact,” Polasek said.
For example, if 70,000 hunters purchased a muzzleloader deer license (at the current bow and firearm license cost of $24), $1.68 million in new revenues would be generated. However, the bill would place the majority of that — nearly $1.63 million — into the wildlife damage account.
It would then not be available for general fish and wildlife activities or to cover the cost of issuing the new license — about $217,000, according to Polasek.
He estimated the free youth hunting season would cost about $74,000, printing of additional carcass tags for the bill’s two-per-license provision at $36,000 and the new vendor issuance fee another $360,000 a year.
“This amount could be offset by a $1 increase in deer hunting licenses (which has not been proposed) or things like stocking (fish, pheasants), habitat work or law enforcement could be reduced,” Polasek said.
Diane Brookbank, the DNR’s Director of the Bureau of Customer Service & Licensing, said license agents earn $1 for each deer license they issue and 50 cents per transaction fee, for a total of $1.50. The proposed bill would give agents another 50 cents, bringing the total to $2 per deer license.
Meanwhile, the plan approved Wednesday by the NRB calls for a late October antlerless gun hunt in all Zone T units and a mid-December antlerless hunt in more than 50 of them. As in recent years, one free antlerless permit would be given with both the bow and gun hunting licenses for use in herd control units.
Twenty-one units were approved for earn-a-buck regulations, meaning a hunter will have had to either pre-qualify in 2005 or will have to shoot an antlerless deer first in 2006 in order to earn a buck sticker. The list includes units 46, 51A, 51B, 54B, 59B, 59C, 59M, 60M, 61, 62A, 62B, 63A, 63B, 64M, 65B, 66, 67A, 67B, 68A, 74A, and 80B.
DNR big game specialist Keith Warnke said about 85,000 who hunted in the 21 units last fall pre-qualified by registering an antlerless deer in 2005. He’s concerned that might reduce the effectiveness of earn-a-buck this year, but noted many of those units would likely remain on a watch list for 2007.
Wisconsin hunters have registered more than 8.5 million deer the past 20 years and the combined gun and bow antlered buck kill has topped 200,000 animals three times in the past decade, something that had never happened prior.
Wildlife biologists estimate there still are somewhere in the neighborhood of one million deer left on the landscape after a 2005 season that produced more than 463,000 whitetails
By Kevin Naze
Press-Gazette correspondent