WI-Gunderson Limits Deer Hunting At Request of Snowmobilers
03-19-2006, 09:33 AM
#1
Fork Horn
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: SE Wisconsin
Posts: 448
WI-Gunderson Limits Deer Hunting At Request of Snowmobilers
WI (R) Gunderson's bill provisions include:
• Issuing two free antlerless deer tags when hunters buy any deer license that could be used in any herd control deer management unit (the former Zone T and Earn-A-Buck units).
Since two free tags in did not work in 2000, why does he think they might work today? The one free tag given now is enough per license, as deer registrations have proved statistically. More December opportunities are needed for muzzleloaders and gun hunters to increase antlerless harvests, not more tags.
• Establishing a four-day, Thursday-through-Sunday, antlerless-only muzzleloader deer season that includes the second full weekend in October.
There are too many leaves on trees in southern WI for this to be a productive or safe gun hunt.
• Establishing a two-day youth hunt on the weekend of the October muzzleloader hunt.
Overlapping a youth shotgun/rifle youth hunt with a muzzleloader hunt is a law enforcement nightmare. With the end of October t-zone hunt, most school age kids had off school and can participate all 4 days.
• Prohibiting the Department of Natural Resources from establishing firearms deer seasons from Oct. 1 through the Friday before Thanksgiving, except the muzzleloader and youth hunts and hunts conducted to control disease in whitetail deer, such as in chronic wasting disease zones.
This eliminatestoo manyoptions for future deer population control measures.
• Eliminating Earn-A-Buck, which requires hunters to shoot an antlerless deer before they can shoot a buck, except in the Chronic Wasting Disease Eradication Zones.
EAB now is only a last resort measure after three years of t-zones have not reduced deer populations. EAB is a vital successful management tool that should not be eliminated. Quality buck harvests usually follow EAB seasons.
• Establishing a separate muzzleloader license, with proceeds supporting wildlife damage abatement.
Purchasing extra antlerless tags already does that. Since Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee stole the license stamp funds and put them in the general fund. What will stop them from stealing any other dedicated wildlife funds?
• Allowing herd control hunts in December, south of Highway 8.
DNR and every outdoor and hunting group in the state tried to implement December hunts state wide, Gunderson and snowmobile club association said no. Michigan has a antlerless hunt the last two weeks in December, in 26 counties, for private land only .... without an issue from snowmobile clubs.
• Allowing bow hunting during the regular nine-day gun deer season.
This is a ok idea, still another law enforcement nightmare .... but sounds like a smoke screen to get bowhunters to go along with the crap above.
In summary: Gundersons proposals greatly reduce gun deer hunting opportunities for WI hunters. His proposals would also severely reduce antlerless harvest and limit future options for herd population control. He is trying to manipulate over 900,000 deer licenses sold to accommodate 230,000 WI registered snowmobiles.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=409013
• Issuing two free antlerless deer tags when hunters buy any deer license that could be used in any herd control deer management unit (the former Zone T and Earn-A-Buck units).
Since two free tags in did not work in 2000, why does he think they might work today? The one free tag given now is enough per license, as deer registrations have proved statistically. More December opportunities are needed for muzzleloaders and gun hunters to increase antlerless harvests, not more tags.
• Establishing a four-day, Thursday-through-Sunday, antlerless-only muzzleloader deer season that includes the second full weekend in October.
There are too many leaves on trees in southern WI for this to be a productive or safe gun hunt.
• Establishing a two-day youth hunt on the weekend of the October muzzleloader hunt.
Overlapping a youth shotgun/rifle youth hunt with a muzzleloader hunt is a law enforcement nightmare. With the end of October t-zone hunt, most school age kids had off school and can participate all 4 days.
• Prohibiting the Department of Natural Resources from establishing firearms deer seasons from Oct. 1 through the Friday before Thanksgiving, except the muzzleloader and youth hunts and hunts conducted to control disease in whitetail deer, such as in chronic wasting disease zones.
This eliminatestoo manyoptions for future deer population control measures.
• Eliminating Earn-A-Buck, which requires hunters to shoot an antlerless deer before they can shoot a buck, except in the Chronic Wasting Disease Eradication Zones.
EAB now is only a last resort measure after three years of t-zones have not reduced deer populations. EAB is a vital successful management tool that should not be eliminated. Quality buck harvests usually follow EAB seasons.
• Establishing a separate muzzleloader license, with proceeds supporting wildlife damage abatement.
Purchasing extra antlerless tags already does that. Since Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee stole the license stamp funds and put them in the general fund. What will stop them from stealing any other dedicated wildlife funds?
• Allowing herd control hunts in December, south of Highway 8.
DNR and every outdoor and hunting group in the state tried to implement December hunts state wide, Gunderson and snowmobile club association said no. Michigan has a antlerless hunt the last two weeks in December, in 26 counties, for private land only .... without an issue from snowmobile clubs.
• Allowing bow hunting during the regular nine-day gun deer season.
This is a ok idea, still another law enforcement nightmare .... but sounds like a smoke screen to get bowhunters to go along with the crap above.
In summary: Gundersons proposals greatly reduce gun deer hunting opportunities for WI hunters. His proposals would also severely reduce antlerless harvest and limit future options for herd population control. He is trying to manipulate over 900,000 deer licenses sold to accommodate 230,000 WI registered snowmobiles.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=409013
03-21-2006, 04:00 PM
#2
Fork Horn
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Saginaw & Houghton Lake, Michigan USA
Posts: 249
RE: WI-Gunderson Limits Deer Hunting At Request of Snowmobilers
ORIGINAL: 1sagittarius
Michigan has a antlerless hunt the last two weekends in December, in 26 counties, for private land only ....
Michigan has a antlerless hunt the last two weekends in December, in 26 counties, for private land only ....
03-22-2006, 06:05 AM
#3
Fork Horn
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: SE Wisconsin
Posts: 448
RE: WI-Gunderson Limits Deer Hunting At Request of Snowmobilers
ORIGINAL: Bob S
The late antlerless season is not limited to just weekends. Last year the season was from December 19 through January 1.
ORIGINAL: 1sagittarius
Michigan has a antlerless hunt the last two weekends in December, in 26 counties, for private land only ....
Michigan has a antlerless hunt the last two weekends in December, in 26 counties, for private land only ....
03-22-2006, 07:39 PM
#4
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Central Wisconsin
Posts: 2,141
RE: WI-Gunderson Limits Deer Hunting At Request of Snowmobilers
personally i would like it if we would get more doe tags, trust me, id use em. personally i think we should do something what PA did or a few others and put antler restrictions on, the only problem is if there is a mature buck with bad genetics or something but what i really think is that doe tags should be as many as you want. i would use every one that i got. its kind of bs having to buy bonus doe tags, even tho i did anyway. i shot four does last year, and that still is not enough
03-24-2006, 07:32 AM
#5
Fork Horn
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: SE Wisconsin
Posts: 448
RE: WI-Gunderson Limits Deer Hunting At Request of Snowmobilers
ORIGINAL: Beagle001
personally i would like it if we would get more doe tags, trust me, id use em. personally i think we should do something what PA did or a few others and put antler restrictions on, the only problem is if there is a mature buck with bad genetics or something but what i really think is that doe tags should be as many as you want. i would use every one that i got. its kind of bs having to buy bonus doe tags, even tho i did anyway. i shot four does last year, and that still is not enough
personally i would like it if we would get more doe tags, trust me, id use em. personally i think we should do something what PA did or a few others and put antler restrictions on, the only problem is if there is a mature buck with bad genetics or something but what i really think is that doe tags should be as many as you want. i would use every one that i got. its kind of bs having to buy bonus doe tags, even tho i did anyway. i shot four does last year, and that still is not enough
With Gun and Bow, Wisconsin currently sells 900,000 deer licenses, each one is two harvest tags, that is 1.8 million tags. Only 450,000 deer are being harvested each year. That is 1.35 million tags that are unused, currently 75% of tags are being wasted.
More tags or licenses are NOT the answer. Wisconsin needs more deer hunting opportunities, in December, state wide, even north of hwy 8.
03-25-2006, 08:51 PM
#6
Fork Horn
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Sussex WI
Posts: 381
RE: WI-Gunderson Limits Deer Hunting At Request of Snowmobilers
[blockquote]quote:
• Establishing a four-day, Thursday-through-Sunday, antlerless-only muzzleloader deer season that includes the second full weekend in October.
There are too many leaves on trees in southern WI for this to be a productive or safe gun hunt.
[/blockquote]
Really?! So how is it that crop damage tags can be filled...with guns!...starting September 1? The DNR seems to have no concerns about a "safe gun hunt"when it comes to that issue
Also, the hunt was moved to lateOctober...right around the peak of the rut, by theway...due to factors that had nothing to do with "safety". Rather, it was a dumb, politically-motivated move to make the hunt coincide with the state teachers conference.
Yeah, all kinds of folks take four days with their kids to go "t-zone hunting"! (Note the healthy dose of sarcasm!)
• Establishing a four-day, Thursday-through-Sunday, antlerless-only muzzleloader deer season that includes the second full weekend in October.
There are too many leaves on trees in southern WI for this to be a productive or safe gun hunt.
[/blockquote]
Really?! So how is it that crop damage tags can be filled...with guns!...starting September 1? The DNR seems to have no concerns about a "safe gun hunt"when it comes to that issue
Also, the hunt was moved to lateOctober...right around the peak of the rut, by theway...due to factors that had nothing to do with "safety". Rather, it was a dumb, politically-motivated move to make the hunt coincide with the state teachers conference.
Yeah, all kinds of folks take four days with their kids to go "t-zone hunting"! (Note the healthy dose of sarcasm!)
03-29-2006, 06:01 AM
#7
Fork Horn
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: SE Wisconsin
Posts: 448
RE: WI-Gunderson Limits Deer Hunting At Request of Snowmobilers
As former DNR secretary under Tommy Thompson I think he knows the legislative process better than anyone. Also has anyone read the article Whitetail Nation in the most recent NRA hunters magazine? It's mostly about the problems in PA but also shows just how bad this situation is here with allowing the barstool biologists to run the show.
Wisconsin Wildlife Federation Opposes Legislative Management of Deer Herd
By George Meyer, Executive Director
From past issues of the Wisconservation, you have read about the major battle between the Natural Resources Board and the State Legislature on which body should manage the Wisconsin deer herd. The DNR worked over the course of a year with the major deer hunting groups to restructure the deer season for 2006 and 2007. All except one group signed onto a new season framework that was adopted by the Natural Resources Board in December.
The Association of Wisconsin Snowmobile Clubs objected to that portion of the rule that would have created a four-day firearm season the second Thursday through Saturday in December. The legislature sided with the snowmobile groups over all of the hunting groups and the DNR even though the snowmobile trails north of Highway 8 have only been open two of the last fifteen years. The legislative committees proposed to move that four day December hunt to the first Thursday through Saturday in December north of Highway 8, smack dab in the middle of the muzzle loading season. In addition there were major objections to that legislative change due to severe enforcement complications and that the season would provide insufficient deer herd control. To its credit, the Natural Resources Board rejected that proposal because it failed to provide adequate sound and scientific management of the deer herd.
The latest legislative excursion into deer management is Assembly Bill 1129. The bill basically takes away DNR’s authority to manage the deer herd for two years by prohibiting the DNR from establishing an all-firearm herd reduction season before the traditional nine day November season and prohibits them from implementing any earn-a-buck herd control. The bill also directs DNR to issue a specific number of additional anterless tags for gun and archery hunting. The bill does establish a four-day October anterless-only muzzle loading season with a $24 license with the money from that license going into the animal damage account. Similar to the Natural Resource Board proposal, the bill does establish an October youth hunting season.
The Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, based on past Board of Director decisions, is opposing this bill for two main reasons: First, the bill removes the authority of the Natural Resources Board to manage Wisconsin’s deer herd in a professional manner based on sound science. It basically takes the basic management methods out of DNR’s hands and supplants their professional management with non-professional political judgments. This is a major turning point in natural resource management in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Conservation Commission (now the Natural Resources Board) was created in 1928 by Aldo Leopold and others for the very specific reason of instituting professional natural resource management in the state and removing the pervasive and harmful political management of wildlife in the state that was occurring at that time.
If you are a trapper, bear hunter, duck hunter, walleye angler or trout fisherman you had better be very concerned about this precedent of the legislature taking over the management of any species by setting seasons, establishing numbers of tags and taking other management tools away from the Natural Resources Board. If any non-hunting or fishing group sways the legislature with their political clout and campaign funds, your particular form of hunting, fishing or trapping could be in serious jeopardy. Think of the precedent ten to fifteen years down the road when we may have a legislature that does not hold our hunting, fishing and trapping values.
Secondly, the bill will not work in terms of reducing the deer herd. It supposedly is intended to save deer hunters from the disliked earn-a-buck system. Well, in fact, if this bill were passed, it will result in the state being border-to-border earn-a-buck for at least one if not two years, because the deer season framework established in the bill will not kill enough deer. Why is that?
The deer herd reduction theory behind the bill is that if you give every gun and archery deer hunter two or three anterless tags they will kill enough deer in the nine-day season to reduce the deer population. The supporters of the proposal point to the 2000 deer season as proof that it will work.
However, I can tell you as the former DNR Secretary during the 2000 deer season, that season has virtually no chance of being replicated again and any wildlife manager that you talk to will confirm this statement. Here is why: In 2000 the pre-hunt deer population was 1.8 million deer in contrast to the 2005 pre-hunt 1.4 million deer. In 2000 there were 695,000 hunters in contrast to the current 650,000 hunters. And while there also were many additional tags issued, the 2000 season (in contrast to AB 1129) had both October and December 4-day hunts and 66,000 deer were killed in the October hunt. In addition 99 of the 120 deer management units were herd reduction zones. Lastly the traditional-nine day gun deer season had virtually perfect hunting conditions including snow cover throughout most of the state.
All those conditions will not occur in the 2006 and 2007 hunting season and as a result of the limited AB 1129 herd reduction tools we simply will not kill enough deer. The result will be that after this two-year “legislative experiment” we will need major, major herd reduction efforts through October hunts and earn-a-buck.
Deer hunters should not buy the tempting promises of AB 1129. It simply will not work.
Wisconsin Wildlife Federation Opposes Legislative Management of Deer Herd
By George Meyer, Executive Director
From past issues of the Wisconservation, you have read about the major battle between the Natural Resources Board and the State Legislature on which body should manage the Wisconsin deer herd. The DNR worked over the course of a year with the major deer hunting groups to restructure the deer season for 2006 and 2007. All except one group signed onto a new season framework that was adopted by the Natural Resources Board in December.
The Association of Wisconsin Snowmobile Clubs objected to that portion of the rule that would have created a four-day firearm season the second Thursday through Saturday in December. The legislature sided with the snowmobile groups over all of the hunting groups and the DNR even though the snowmobile trails north of Highway 8 have only been open two of the last fifteen years. The legislative committees proposed to move that four day December hunt to the first Thursday through Saturday in December north of Highway 8, smack dab in the middle of the muzzle loading season. In addition there were major objections to that legislative change due to severe enforcement complications and that the season would provide insufficient deer herd control. To its credit, the Natural Resources Board rejected that proposal because it failed to provide adequate sound and scientific management of the deer herd.
The latest legislative excursion into deer management is Assembly Bill 1129. The bill basically takes away DNR’s authority to manage the deer herd for two years by prohibiting the DNR from establishing an all-firearm herd reduction season before the traditional nine day November season and prohibits them from implementing any earn-a-buck herd control. The bill also directs DNR to issue a specific number of additional anterless tags for gun and archery hunting. The bill does establish a four-day October anterless-only muzzle loading season with a $24 license with the money from that license going into the animal damage account. Similar to the Natural Resource Board proposal, the bill does establish an October youth hunting season.
The Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, based on past Board of Director decisions, is opposing this bill for two main reasons: First, the bill removes the authority of the Natural Resources Board to manage Wisconsin’s deer herd in a professional manner based on sound science. It basically takes the basic management methods out of DNR’s hands and supplants their professional management with non-professional political judgments. This is a major turning point in natural resource management in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Conservation Commission (now the Natural Resources Board) was created in 1928 by Aldo Leopold and others for the very specific reason of instituting professional natural resource management in the state and removing the pervasive and harmful political management of wildlife in the state that was occurring at that time.
If you are a trapper, bear hunter, duck hunter, walleye angler or trout fisherman you had better be very concerned about this precedent of the legislature taking over the management of any species by setting seasons, establishing numbers of tags and taking other management tools away from the Natural Resources Board. If any non-hunting or fishing group sways the legislature with their political clout and campaign funds, your particular form of hunting, fishing or trapping could be in serious jeopardy. Think of the precedent ten to fifteen years down the road when we may have a legislature that does not hold our hunting, fishing and trapping values.
Secondly, the bill will not work in terms of reducing the deer herd. It supposedly is intended to save deer hunters from the disliked earn-a-buck system. Well, in fact, if this bill were passed, it will result in the state being border-to-border earn-a-buck for at least one if not two years, because the deer season framework established in the bill will not kill enough deer. Why is that?
The deer herd reduction theory behind the bill is that if you give every gun and archery deer hunter two or three anterless tags they will kill enough deer in the nine-day season to reduce the deer population. The supporters of the proposal point to the 2000 deer season as proof that it will work.
However, I can tell you as the former DNR Secretary during the 2000 deer season, that season has virtually no chance of being replicated again and any wildlife manager that you talk to will confirm this statement. Here is why: In 2000 the pre-hunt deer population was 1.8 million deer in contrast to the 2005 pre-hunt 1.4 million deer. In 2000 there were 695,000 hunters in contrast to the current 650,000 hunters. And while there also were many additional tags issued, the 2000 season (in contrast to AB 1129) had both October and December 4-day hunts and 66,000 deer were killed in the October hunt. In addition 99 of the 120 deer management units were herd reduction zones. Lastly the traditional-nine day gun deer season had virtually perfect hunting conditions including snow cover throughout most of the state.
All those conditions will not occur in the 2006 and 2007 hunting season and as a result of the limited AB 1129 herd reduction tools we simply will not kill enough deer. The result will be that after this two-year “legislative experiment” we will need major, major herd reduction efforts through October hunts and earn-a-buck.
Deer hunters should not buy the tempting promises of AB 1129. It simply will not work.
