Wisconsin Deer Laws

[cleoeo]

The 9 day Wisconsin whitetail deer hunt is designed to create a big harvest in a short time and still leave a huge herd of deer. It's a big tourist industry, getting hundreds of thousands of armchair outdoorsmen to shell out millions of dollars to shoot deer. Naturally they want to be successful without too much effort (money's not a problem for them, time is) so we need a massive herd and easy pickin's to keep 'em coming back. Can't very well have the hardy locals going out on Winter weekends and depleting the herd using Grandpa's old rifle and hand-me-down clothing, can we?
Now we've got "mad deer disease" started in the herd, the result of too concentrated a population. Nobody's going to want to shoot them. What a sad mess.
In defense of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resourses, they've been pushing to reduce the herd for years. It's the greedy and shortsighthed deer-hunt industry participants (merchants and armchair outdoorsmen both) who have insisted on the 9 day hunt.

[amr]

As a native of N. Wisconsin, I agree with you. The funny part is, in the area I am from, the deer herd isn't particularly large, yet the "Foreigners from Illinois" keep coming up when they should be concentrating on thinning the herd in the S third of the state. And there are plenty of people who need to hunt to feed themselves and it is illegal to do so (Clark county is one of the poorest in the state).

Also, the 9-day hunt creates a dangerous situation--too many stupid people with guns in a small space. My mom is afaid of going out of the house with all those drunken yahoos running around. Plus you're taking a risk just to drive anywhere because crazed deer are apt to jump out at you.

I will disagree on defending the DNR, they have done so many stupid things that I can't stand the very idea of the organization.

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a politician is an arse upon which
everything has sat except a man
--e.e. cummings

[weldordave]

Does Wisconsin have different rates for resident and non-resident tags? I've never hunted but I seem to remember that SD had rates that were so lopsided that it kept foreigners out. Big thing were Buffalo. Out-of-staters were "priced out". But then we had deer in urban areas because locals could not shoot enough. What a mess! But we had a land law. If it was on your land you can shoot it despite the season. Fish & Game sure is a job I wouldn't want. And I grew up with a bounty on praire dogs, coyotes, and wolves. No license, bring 'em in, get cash.

[CBranski]

I think that we do charge more for hunting licenses for folks from out of state-i may be wrong because I live right outside of Downtown Milwaukee and do all my hunting at Pick n Save.

And oh amr, I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that the DNR does stupid things! They'll jump down the throat of some schmuck who catches a fish that's 1/2 inch too short, but didn't do a thing when the Milwaukee Sewerage District pumped gallons of raw sewage into Lake Michigan several times!

[amr]

I got one better, the wild turkey population (and I mean the birds, not the whiskey http://www.dumblaws.com/ubb/smile.gif) in N. WI has grown in the last few years. What does the DNR do: Allow more hunting permits? Extend the hunting season? Offer an additional season? NO!! Instead, they import rattlesnakes http://www.dumblaws.com/ubb/eek.gif. The idea is that the snakes will eat the turkey eggs, thereby reducing the population and the snakes will die off from the cold. However, these snakes come from upstate New York and can survive the cold. The turkey population is still large and now we've got rattlers in the woods!

How ironic is that for a supposed environmental organization to be messing around and importing foreign species into the ecosystem? Haven't we learned anything from the Japanese beetle (Dutch Elm disease), the kudzu vine (S. US), or rabbits in Australia?

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a politician is an arse upon which
everything has sat except a man
--e.e. cummings

[CBranski]

OMG, I didn't hear about the rattlesnakes Up North, amr! It really saddens me to hear that folks in our state pay the 4th highest taxes in the nation to pay for nonsense like this! I woulda thought that the DNR would figure out that rattlesnakes are a lot more dangerous than hunters?

Do you know of the DNR at least stocked hospitals in Northern WI with rattlesnake venom? Would be nice considering it's up to 60 miles between hospitals up there!

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Tony Soprano for Sherriff!

[jettmotto]

i think instead of importing dangrous snakes how bout deporting the birds and especailly the deer we have large numbers of deer here in indiana but we could use your big ones :D people here go "spotlightin" and shot deer at random and never find them cause its like 10pm- 4am they do the "spotlightin" kinda hard to see i suppose, but then when hunting season is in all we have is does and fawns cos some jackass wanted to shoot the "big one" but couldn't find it. i see carcasus from 6 point bucks up to 12 points bucks like 6 months after they were killed!:mad:

[amr]

Jett, we call that "shining" here. It's illegal in Wisconsin, but no one ever gets caught, especially when you live 10 mi outside of town. (tho that can be a good thing too :))

About stocking the hospitals with anti-venom, I don't know. My mom's a nurse and I'll ask her when I get a chance.

Now it looks like S. WI will have a massive hunt to eradicate Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). It's the deer version of mad cow.