May 11, 2023 at 12:29 p.m.
Northwoods CDACs set recommendations for antlerless deer quotas
Possible return to management units discussed
The difficulty, especially in the north, said Oneida CDAC councilman Gregg Walker, owner of the Lakeland Times and River News, is that vastly different conditions present themselves in different parts of each county. For instance, in Oneida County, the deer herd west of Highway 51 is all but gone, he said. Other CDAC members agreed. In Vilas County, CDAC members have pointed to the disparity in Winter Severity Index numbers from the far north of the county to the southern portion.
According to the wildlife biologists who attended the meetings in Vilas and Oneida County, an opportunity to return to the former Deer Management Units (DMUs), or to split the counties in any way, would not come until three-year objectives are set next fall and winter. It was also unclear whether CDACs would be redrawn based on new management units or exactly how that would be handled. However, many were happy to hear that it may at least be a management tool that would be considered, especially in the northern counties. During both meetings, frustration was evident that there was nothing that could be done other than set an antlerless permit level that may work well in one part of the county but have an adverse effect in another part of the county.
"We should not even have a deer season in the western part of the county," Walker said of Oneida County.
"What we're allowed to do is not helping," said council member Adam Hickson of the Vilas CDAC.
"There's been discussion about our units getting split," said Vilas County council chair Kurt Justice. "Dean (Bortz) and I and a couple of other gentlemen went down to Madison to talk to the Outdoor Heritage Committee."
"Greg Pronschinski is the chair of the Assembly sporting heritage committee," Bortz said. "He held a hearing and allowed us to speak at it with the idea of potentially going back to the numbered units we had prior to the deer trustee report with Dr. Deer coming from Texas."
"This has been, I think, the biggest thorn in our sides," Justice said. "We have the ones that want to see, in certain areas more deer harvested and in certain areas less deer harvested. And we realize, as most people in this room realize, our county is not the same everywhere. So, we pushed for it. I think we have traction now. In the past it's been frustrating because we wanted this to happen back - The only reason I'm still here is because, I wanted to disband our little group a couple years ago and Laurel (Anderson) said if we don't stick together and push through this, we will never get this county split up. She was right."
While it won't happen in 2023, Justice said he hoped it would be in place by 2024. He said he had a good feeling if it could not be in place by 2024, he was confident it would be in place for 2025. That, he said, would mean higher antlerless quotas could be put in place where it made sense, and lower quotas could be kept in places where deer populations were low.
As part of each CDAC meeting, a Department of Natural Resources (DNR) biologist gives a presentation to the council members regarding the deer metrics in the county. This includes items such as the deer herd health and winter severity index. In the north, one of the biggest driving factors, especially in a severe winter, may be the Winter Severity Index, according to the department.
In this last winter, the area saw heavy snowfalls, followed by warming that melted a good deal of snow, and then snow again.
The Winter Severity Index is calculated using temperature and amount of snow on the ground. For each day it is below zero, the index increases by one point. With each day there is 18 inches of snow on the ground or more, the index increases another point. The higher the index, the more severe the winter is said to be. However, with the melting events throughout the winter, DNR wildlife biologist Curt Rollman said he did not feel the index was weighted heavily enough for the actual severity of the winter. For that reason, he did change it slightly, providing that to the CDAC before they made their decision about how many tags would be allowed, given their "increase" objective for the deer population for this three-year period.
This is the third year of the three-year overall objective. CDACs set an overall objective every three years. That objective may be to maintain, increase or decrease the deer herd. It is an overall objective, meaning, at the end of those three years, the objective would be said to be met if the population of deer was deemed to follow that objective.
Wolves
The "elephant in the room," as Bill Reynolds called it during the Vilas County CDAC meeting, is predation. With expanding wolf populations, predation, Reynolds and others said, has had an increasing affect on deer populations.
There was also some discussion regarding wolves in the Oneida CDAC meeting. However, there was little that could be done about the wolves until such time as they are delisted and management returned to the state.
"When a prey herd is stressed, the wolves will keep their numbers low," Walker said.
With one of the worse winters on record for snowfall, he said, it was something to keep in mind when setting quotas.
Quotas
Based on a 27% success rate, Vilas County set its antlerless quotas, after a great deal of discussion on both sides. The decision was to increase the number of antlerless tags for 2023, with the understanding that where in the county people hunted was beyond their scope, said Justice. This would still help the county keep to its overall three-year objective.
Although some wished to decrease the deer population numbers, the CDAC decided on a maintain objective for this three-year period.
A motion was made to allow 3,000 antlerless tags for the upcoming season. This would mean a quota of 840 antlerless deer based on past success rates. This would make the harvest objective 960, which would then include youth, disabled and nuisance tags. Michelle Woodford said she felt this would be a good quota. The council decided on a 50/50 split between private and public land for available antlerless tags.
In Oneida County there was a great deal of discussion as well, with Walker and others advocating for fewer tags and council members such as Denny Nitzel, representing agriculture on the Council requesting more tags.
Oneida County chair Ed Choinski floated a suggestion of 500 antlerless tags on public land and the rest of the tags to private lands, having 2,160 tags on private land. He said he would do this in order to protect the herd on public land, which would be needed to address the issues being seen in the county with the tools available to them, which were quite limited. Agricultural entities, he said, could still put in for crop damage tags to mitigate the issues being seen there. The decision was to agree to those tag numbers in order to harvest 125 deer on public land and 540 deer on private land.
CDAC Charter
Each CDAC in each county is governed by a charter. That charter states they are to gather public opinion on deer population goals, antlerless quotas and season options. The CDACs are then to review and consider metrics on deer herd trends, impacts and human interactions. From there, the CDACs provide input to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) as far as the antlerless quota they would like for the county and the permit levels, based on past hunter success.
That said, the antlerless quotas set by the CDACs will be forwarded to the Natural Resources Board (NRB) for approval. Once approved by the NRB, antlerless quotas will be put into place for the 2023 season.
Beckie Gaskill may be reached via email at [email protected].
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