Jan Shepel
Associate Editor
MADISON
As deer hunters get their blaze orange out of storage and sight their guns for the upcoming deer season, the state’s largest farm organization is weighing in on changes to future deer hunts.
The Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation (WFBF) said this week that it supports proposed changes by the Department of Natural Resources for next year that will allow more hunting opportunities. But Farm Bureau wants to see the DNR keep the authority to implement earn-a-buck hunts in areas where deer numbers swell.
In these areas hunters must first shoot an antlerless deer in order to be eligible to harvest a buck. Some hunters object to killing female deer, or young deer without horns on traditional grounds.
But Farm Bureau, in a letter to the DNR said it recommends that language be included in the rules governing deer hunting that will allow the agency to immediately implement an earn-a-buck program if deer reduction goals are not met.
The farm group made its recommendation to the DNR’s Bureau of Wildlife Management, following public hearings on revisions to the state’s deer hunting rules known as NR 10.
“WFBF supports the additional hunting opportunities, however, due to hunter attitudes and traditions, we are concerned that history will repeat itself and we will quickly have an overpopulation of deer,” wrote Jeff Lyon, Farm Bureau’s director of governmental relations.
Farm Bureau’s concern is that an overpopulation of deer will result in the need for more funding for the Wildlife Damage Abatement and Claims Program, which pays landowners – many of whom are farmers – for damage to their crops from wildlife.
The Wildlife Damage program has paid out about $2 million in claims to roughly 500 farmers in each of the last few years, out of a total budget of $3 million. The rest goes to cover abatement practices, the venison donation program and administrative costs.
Paul Zimmerman, executive director of public affairs for Farm Bureau, said that the DNR hasn’t put out hard numbers on the deer population this year as they took a lot of heat for it last year. “But coming out of the hunting season in 2008 we started with 1.6 million deer and 450,000 were killed. Then with winter attrition I’m guessing we have about a million deer out there,” he said.
It is long-standing policy of Farm Bureau that bag limits should be increased along with the number of permits to reduce the population of deer and other wildlife populations. When those deer populations rise, the organization would like to see DNR institute the earn-a-buck program or any other program that will draw down the deer herd.
Casey Langan, a spokesman for Farm Bureau, said the group also supports a ban on baiting and feeding deer. “That’s how disease is spread and we don’t want tuberculosis in deer in Wisconsin. In Michigan the same areas with TB in deer have it in their cattle as well. It’s an animal health issue,” he said.
The concerns of Farm Bureau come at the same time the DNR is predicting a smaller deer harvest this season.
“There are a number of factors coming together in 2009 that will most likely lead to a lower total deer harvest,” said Keith Warnke, big game ecologist with DNR. “There are fewer herd control units and no earn-a-buck requirement except in the chronic wasting disease management zone; below average fawn production in the past two years; a reduced number of antlerless permits in northern Wisconsin due to lower deer populations in that region; and a delayed corn harvest. All these will contribute to a lower antlerless deer harvest and a lower total harvest.”
Without the earn-a-buck provisions, the total deer harvest is almost guaranteed to drop, said wildlife managers at the agency. At hearings, hunters relayed their wishes to the agency.
“Hunters told us they wished to return to a more historically traditional hunt,” said Warnke. “They will see that traditional hunt in many deer management units in the north and central forest where deer populations are at or close to a healthy goal, and where there will be no earn-a-buck and few or no antlerless permits issued.”
Warnke said management practices, including earn-a-buck programs are accomplishing what they were intended to do, bringing deer numbers down to healthy population goals in some parts of the state.
Gun hunters will not be able to harvest antlerless deer in 2009 in 13 northeastern management units. In addition, the number of antlerless deer permits has been tightly controlled in most of the north and central forest because the agency feels the deer populations there are at goal or below it.
Warnke said deer populations are lower in a number of areas across the state compared to past seasons and fawn production for 2009 is still below the long-term average. However, it was better than last year.
The tough harvest season for farmers will probably be good for deer. The large areas of corn that remain unharvested through the deer hunt will provide outstanding cover for deer, Warnke said.
Farmer Bureau’s Zimmerman said there is a reason farmers need to be concerned about wildlife populations. Of the 16 million acres of forestland in Wisconsin, much is held by federal, state, county and municipal entities. But about 57 percent of the forestland is owned by individuals, he said.
“Farmers own 16 million acres of land in the state of which 12 million is crop and pasture land and 4 million is woods. Basically, farmers own 25 percent of the woodland in the state,” Zimmerman said.
