In a 15-page letter to Department of Natural Resources secretary Matt Frank, a total of 21 signatories are strongly urging the state's top DNR official to scrutinize a proposed 10-year plan to combat Chronic Wasting Disease in Wisconsin.
The group includes 12 members of the DNR-sponsored Stakeholder Advisory Group (SAG) that met several times in 2007-08 to discuss future attempts to deal with CWD in the white-tailed deer herd. The agency used the results of those discussions to assist in formulating a plan to guide that effort.
The letter refers to a statement by Secretary Frank on Sept. 22, 2007 that the DNR would "take stock after five years," not 10, and leaves the group less than satisfied with the overall result.
"Our impression is that the DNR has stepped backward, not forward, with this plan. The agency, the group maintains, remains out of sync with the reality of the current situation."
The letter writers target five of the plan's proposals as objectionable.
1. Sharpshooting: The group reasons that sharpshooting is counterproductive because disgusted hunters will shoot fewer deer. Moreover, taxpayers, they suggest, object to paying government workers or private contractors hundreds of dollars for killing each deer. They also maintain that bait piles in southern Wisconsin during the winter become a bait shed that will draw deer from a 10-square-mile area.
2. Extended winter season: Allowing landowners to shoot deer through the end of March, the group argues, serves as a way of masking the agency's unpopular winter sharpshooting activities. The practice undermines the public image of hunters because it encourages thrill killing by rogue individuals all too willing to help the DNR kill every last deer.
3. 10-year plan: The original SAG recommendation involved a five-year plan. "Ten years is an eternity," the group says, considering the uncertainty that now characterizes CWD research and management. The critics argue that the plan could be taken off the shelf later to blindside people with extreme deer killing tactics.
4. Baiting/feeding: Hypocrisy is how the group describes the plan for a statewide baiting and feeding ban. The group says that research has never established that a wild deer has come down with CWD as the result of baiting and feeding. CWD has been found in southern Wisconsin where baiting and feeding has never been widely practiced, they contend, while the disease has not been discovered in the north where baiting and feeding is commonplace.
The group acknowledges that supplemental feeding is "problematic." However, they argue, the intentional use of bait by sharpshooters contradicts the notion that the practice contributes to the spread of the disease. The group also questions allowing the widespread use of deer urine and secretions when these same substances are suspected of spreading the disease.
5. Fifty-six percent herd reduction: The letter writers refer to the SAG recommendation for a five-year reduction plan to reduce the herd to 20 percent below the 2001 Deer Management Unit goal as a perceived consensus. Instead, the group contends, the new DNR proposal calls for a reduction within the CWD-Management Zone from 200,000 animals to 88,000. Because the winter aerial survey (conducted in January in both 2008 and 2009) missed the severity of winter losses, DNR estimates of the deer population are inaccurate and the plan, if successful, would result in the deer herd being cut by more than half.
Citing policy expenditures as bearing "meager fruit", the letter urges the DNR secretary to stop unproductive activities and engage the public in a new CWD policy partnership.
In summary, the letter states, "It is our strong feeling that if the current plan makes its way unchallenged into a costly policy, many people are likely to view those responsible with ever growing hostility."
There was no response from the secretary's office by press time.
- Lee Fahrney is the Times outdoors writer. He can be reached at (608) 967-2208 or at fiveoaks@mhtc.net.
The group includes 12 members of the DNR-sponsored Stakeholder Advisory Group (SAG) that met several times in 2007-08 to discuss future attempts to deal with CWD in the white-tailed deer herd. The agency used the results of those discussions to assist in formulating a plan to guide that effort.
The letter refers to a statement by Secretary Frank on Sept. 22, 2007 that the DNR would "take stock after five years," not 10, and leaves the group less than satisfied with the overall result.
"Our impression is that the DNR has stepped backward, not forward, with this plan. The agency, the group maintains, remains out of sync with the reality of the current situation."
The letter writers target five of the plan's proposals as objectionable.
1. Sharpshooting: The group reasons that sharpshooting is counterproductive because disgusted hunters will shoot fewer deer. Moreover, taxpayers, they suggest, object to paying government workers or private contractors hundreds of dollars for killing each deer. They also maintain that bait piles in southern Wisconsin during the winter become a bait shed that will draw deer from a 10-square-mile area.
2. Extended winter season: Allowing landowners to shoot deer through the end of March, the group argues, serves as a way of masking the agency's unpopular winter sharpshooting activities. The practice undermines the public image of hunters because it encourages thrill killing by rogue individuals all too willing to help the DNR kill every last deer.
3. 10-year plan: The original SAG recommendation involved a five-year plan. "Ten years is an eternity," the group says, considering the uncertainty that now characterizes CWD research and management. The critics argue that the plan could be taken off the shelf later to blindside people with extreme deer killing tactics.
4. Baiting/feeding: Hypocrisy is how the group describes the plan for a statewide baiting and feeding ban. The group says that research has never established that a wild deer has come down with CWD as the result of baiting and feeding. CWD has been found in southern Wisconsin where baiting and feeding has never been widely practiced, they contend, while the disease has not been discovered in the north where baiting and feeding is commonplace.
The group acknowledges that supplemental feeding is "problematic." However, they argue, the intentional use of bait by sharpshooters contradicts the notion that the practice contributes to the spread of the disease. The group also questions allowing the widespread use of deer urine and secretions when these same substances are suspected of spreading the disease.
5. Fifty-six percent herd reduction: The letter writers refer to the SAG recommendation for a five-year reduction plan to reduce the herd to 20 percent below the 2001 Deer Management Unit goal as a perceived consensus. Instead, the group contends, the new DNR proposal calls for a reduction within the CWD-Management Zone from 200,000 animals to 88,000. Because the winter aerial survey (conducted in January in both 2008 and 2009) missed the severity of winter losses, DNR estimates of the deer population are inaccurate and the plan, if successful, would result in the deer herd being cut by more than half.
Citing policy expenditures as bearing "meager fruit", the letter urges the DNR secretary to stop unproductive activities and engage the public in a new CWD policy partnership.
In summary, the letter states, "It is our strong feeling that if the current plan makes its way unchallenged into a costly policy, many people are likely to view those responsible with ever growing hostility."
There was no response from the secretary's office by press time.
- Lee Fahrney is the Times outdoors writer. He can be reached at (608) 967-2208 or at fiveoaks@mhtc.net.
