Deer hunting stakeholders ask for change, local control of wolf population

Weeks after what many called an abysmal deer hunting season in the north, with harvest numbers down as much as 30%, State Sen. Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk), Rep. Rob Swearingen (R-Rhinelander) and Representative Calvin Callahan (R-Tomahawk) hosted a listening session in Woodruff Thursday evening regarding the state of the deer herd in the Northwoods.

Also in attendance were State Sen. Cory Tomczyk (R-Mosinee), State Rep. Chanz Green (R-Grand View) and U.S Rep. Tom Tiffany, as well as Bill Smith, chair of the Natural Resources Board (NRB), and a representative from the Department of Natural Resources. Governor Tony Evers and Attorney General Kaul declined invitations to attend.

Over 175 people attended in-person while over 125 viewed a live stream of the proceedings on The Lakeland Times Facebook page. By Friday morning, the video had received over 8,300 views. 

This points to the importance of deer hunting to those in the Northwoods and the impact deer hunting has had on many people’s lives.

Several attendees spoke about days gone by, where, on the Friday before the nine-day gun hunt, the Northwoods was alive with hunters and the hustle and bustle of opening of deer camps. Taverns and supper clubs were filled with blaze orange and stories of past hunts filled the air with raucous laughter. 

For most, those days are gone. Many deer camps are a thing of the past, with hunters opting for other locations to hunt, or giving up the pursuit altogether. Many in the audience spoke about keeping hunting alive for their children and grandchildren, and their concern that, without seeing any deer in the woods, the younger generations would simply not participate in the future. 

Gregg Walker, publisher of the Lakeland Times and the River News, an Oneida County Deer Advisory Council member and lifelong hunter, stated his two older sons had not even purchased a license for this year.

“That’s ridiculous,” he told the legislators. 

The major culprit in the eyes of most hunters is the  wolf population.

Bear and other predators, as well as severe winters, Walker said, have always been a part of deer hunting, and the deer herd has always cycled, with up years and down years. Now, however, there are no “up” years. 

He said there have been no laws implemented to protect the deer herd in the last 20 years. Walker contended that the DNR was managing the herd from a kill perspective. In the past, the old Deer Management Unit (DMU) 31 was managed under a former biologist Chet Botwinski at 20 deer per square mile. Today, Walker said, he did not think there were three deer per square mile.

“If Chet were alive today,” he said, “I would say, he would say no hunting. There’d be no season, because that’s how bad the deer herd is.” 

He went on to opine that the only chance the deer herd has to build up is for deer to move into the towns, which is what is happening in the Northwoods. 

He asked Felzkowski and Swearingen if there was anything that could be done. 

Felzkowski said the Senate had a hearing to confirm the NRB appointees.

“Because of the governor that’s appointed them, there is a reluctance to go against the wolf management plan,” she said. “We also heard the wolf management plan and the DNR’s arrogance at presenting that to us with the boundaries around tribal lands and no quotas, but keep in mind, they put, it’s a socially accepted plan. They let the public weigh in on wolves, but the majority of the public that weighed in on the wolf management plan were not northern Wisconsin public.” 

She said more meetings, like the one held Thursday, is likely the way to get more attention on the issues facing the deer herd, including the wolf issue. 

If people want to change the DNR, she said, the only hope to do that is to elect people who were sportsmen and women and who were in favor of hunting and other outdoor pursuits. 

Former NRB members Greg Kazmierski and Dr. Fred Prehn were also in attendance at the meeting. Kazmierski took the microphone first, noting that deer was his speciality, which was why he was put on the NRB. He helped to put together a deer management plan at that time.

“The problem is much more complex than the shiny objects the DNR and outdoor writers would like you to believe,” he said. “Wolves, predators, DMU boundaries, baiting, early openers, the Kroll Plan, CDACs and the numerous other excuses we have heard for years: too cold, too hot, standing corn, post rut syndrome, no snow, too much snow, and my favorite of all is: hunters don’t want to shoot deer anymore.” 

He said those are excuses that are still bandied about. Those things, he said, are not the problem. While wolves are a problem, if that predation is worked into the management plan, they would not be a problem. Instead, he said, the issue is a lack of execution by the DNR to fully implement the Kroll Plan, which is the state’s most recent deer management plan. While it is in administrative code, Kazmierski said, much of it has not been implemented and some things have been implemented that were in direct contrast to that plan.

“The fundamental change in the Kroll Plan is that it’s a harvest-response based quota system,” Kazmierski said. “What that means is you look at the harvest from one year — how did the deer herd respond, and what we’re looking at for the deer herd response is the buck kill responding the following year and the following year after that.” 

He said there were now nine years of data that can be looked at to know where quotas should be set. Unfortunately, he said, the quotas are not based on that. 

The Kroll Plan, he said, was based on hard data rather than a population model. 

A study done on the SAK model found it to be accurate +/- 121.9% of the true population level 95% of the time, which triggered implementation of the Kroll Plan, he said. 

Fred Prehn has hunted in the Northwoods since 1959. He said the Kroll Report can be thrown out, but the CDACs needed more information in order to do the job tasked to them.

“When I got on the board six or seven years ago, I didn’t even know what a CDAC was,” he said. “I had no idea, and then I quickly learned what the CDAC was and my first impression was, wow, we’re going to empower the hunter to make decisions for the quota. Great idea.” 

The power of setting quotas, under the Kroll Report gives the CDAC the quota setting power, he explained. In the beginning, the council in each county was made up of hunters, foresters, insurance people and agricultural people. Hunters, he said, knew more than any group about what was happening on the landscape, because they were out in the woods walking and seeing firsthand what was going on. 

“But I quickly found out with the DNR that they were feeding information, because they didn’t like this Kroll Report. It took the total quota out of there hands and put it back with the people. That was the idea of the Kroll Report.” 

The DNR, he said, wanted to control the quota. Once the CDAC puts together their quota, which would then go to the NRB. While he was on the board, he said, they tried to change those quotas because they knew what was coming out of the CDACs was not accurate for the landscape. Over time, he said, the makeup of many of the CDACs were replaced by what he called “DNR types” and “yes people.” 

“We tried to modify doe quotas,” he said of one year’s recommendations. “You would have thought I was trying to move hell and back. We caught hell every time we tried to do it.”

For the next two hours, legislators and others on the listening panel heard story after story of hunters who were seeing more wolf tracks than deer tracks, hunters who were seeing few or no deer in areas where they had traditionally hunted for decades. There were stories of hunters who were now hunting in a different area of the state, just in an attempt to keep their kids interested in the pursuit.

Oneida CDAC chair Ed Choinski asked all in attendance to attend their CDAC meetings in the spring. He said having more people at those meetings to share their experiences and voice their opinions is important to the overall process. He also said getting accurate information from the DNR would be crucial.

“One of the common denominators tonight, and I want to harp on it, the common denominator tonight is wolves, wolves, wolves. Go for a walk. The real problem we have with the DNR is they need to tell the truth. When they say we have 1,200 wolves, the ‘anti-s’ get mad at us when we want to shoot them. If they told the truth, that we have 3,000 to 4,000, maybe they wouldn’t be so mad that we had to do something.”

“We’re losing one of the greatest traditions this state has ever had,” Walker said. “And it’s just sickening.”

“I appreciate the input that we’ve gotten,” NRB chair Bill Smith said. He noted that there were other hot spots in the state regarding deer such as CWD and farm crop impacts, which were equally controversial in those parts of the state. He said he wanted to assure the northern hunters that he would bring what he heard during the meeting into the board discussion. “But I would also like to endorse strongly the CDAC process and the Wisconsin Conservation Congress.” 

He said that system was set up to get as much local influence on deer management in the state as possible. He encouraged attendees to attend the meetings and bring their ideas.

The meeting ended with Felzkowski and Swearingen thanking the public for their attendance and asking that they keep attending meetings such as this one to make their voices herd. They assured those in attendance that they would take the concerns they were hearing back to Madison, but it would take a group effort, with legislators and other stakeholders staying vigilant and speaking up about their experiences. 

Felzkowski said deer hunting was a “big deal” and it was time to also start talking about habitat as there was no one “silver bullet” that would bring the deer herd back. She also said she has asked the DNR if the deer herd was being managed for an excess of predators, so there would be something left for hunters to harvest. That question, along with the question on how habitat was managed, had no answer from the DNR.

“When we had that wolf plan proposed to us last Tuesday, I had three guys in suits who sit in a cubicle tell me what the wolf management plan should be,” Felzkowski said. “Think any one has ever stepped in a forest? Sure didn’t look like it to me.” 

She said she felt all of the “hook and bullet” portion of the DNR should be moved to the Northwoods, just as the forestry portion of the DNR had been. Applause from the crowd showed they agreed. That, she said, would put the people making the decisions in the area they needed to be in to truly understand what was happening on the landscape.

The full livestream of the listening session event can be found on the Lakeland Times Facebook page.

Beckie Gaskill may be reached via email at [email protected].