Natural Resources Board hears update on plans to revisit Deer Management Units

At the August meeting of the Natural Resources Board, Scott Karel, Department of Natural Resources (DNR) wildlife policy specialist, asked the panel for approval of a public hearing notice regarding Deer Management Units (DMUs).

Several years ago, the department moved away from the DMU framework whereby deer were managed by habitat type to a system where management units became county boundaries. While deer obviously do not take human-drawn boundaries into consideration with their movements, the thought was the change would result in simplification for hunters. 

However, inn recent years, County Deer Advisory Councils (CDACs) in some counties, including Oneida and Vilas, have expressed a desire to split their counties and manage them as two separate DMUs, according to habitat type.

In Oneida County, the wish has been to split the county East and West, along Highway 51, due to the smaller deer herd numbers in the western part of the county. In Vilas County, the wish has been to create a North to South split because the Winter Severity Index in the northern portion of the county is often much higher than in the rest of the county.

Karel said the scope statement had not come before the board before this meeting. Allowing the department to move ahead with a scope statement would allow it to begin rule drafting, if that is deemed necessary, with the topic possibly coming back for a public hearing, he said.

 After that, the topic would come back to the board for adoption and board action on an emergency rule and a permanent rule.

The department, he said, is in the processing of completing a DMU review. The review focuses on a couple specific things. One of those is possibly redrawing the DMUs for the Northern Forest Zone. 

The other would be potentially redrawing the zone boundaries in the Central Forest Zone. Both of these things have been brought up by CDAC members in the past. He said there is also a desire to expand metro sub units. If a rule should come back to the board, it would focus on those three things.

According to Karel, next steps would include seeking public input on what a potential boundary adjustment might look like. This would involve conversations with Tribes, CDACs and the Wisconsin Conservation Congress. 

From there, if there is agreement that a change is needed, a public hearing would be held. An emergency rule and a permanent rule would then come back to the board in February of 2025. This would mean the rule would be in place in time for the spring CDAC meetings. 

DNR deer program specialist Jeff Pritzl informed CDACs in a letter shortly after the meeting that the review would be commencing and that it would include the Northern Forest Zone. 

In his letter he informed CDAC members that a DNR deer advisory committee meeting will be held in mid-September to look at potential DMU boundary changes in the Northern Forest Zone. He noted that CDACs do not have a formal role in this discussion and, as such, will not be meeting to call a vote on the matter. However, the letter did call CDACs an “important stakeholder and representative” of the communities they serve. With that in mind, the department wanted to afford the CDACs an early opportunity to engage in the discussion and provide recommendations.

Oneida CDAC chair Ed Choinski said his council has been asking for the East to West split for seven years. Although the letter said CDAC input would not be binding in any way, he said he felt positive about the idea that it was coming to a meeting finally. He said the people that know the deer herd in the county best are still the people that spend time in the woods, the hunters and other sportsmen and women.

Pritzl stated that CDAC members could reply to his email, make comments through their CDAC chair, or they could do so though their Wisconsin Conservation Congress delegates, as the Conservation Congress deer study committee would be meeting in September as well.

Pritzl also shared a short video with CDAC members highlighting the same matters Karel spoke to the board about. He said discussion about the Farmland units would be held for a different time, as the Farmland discussion would potentially be more complicated and take more time.

He also reviewed the DMU process through history. Back in the 1920s, he said, DMUs were county boundaries. The system stayed that way until the 1950s, when a habitat-based system was developed and implemented. By 1965 there were 77 DMUs in the state.

By 2012, Pritzl said there were over 120 DMUs, not including state park units. There was some concern about how populations were monitored through harvest data, leading to an external audit in 2006. That audit stated the DMUs were too small to conduct population modeling. 

The primary recommendation, Pritzl said, was to go back to fewer, larger DMUs. 

However, through the creation of the deer trustee report, the previous efforts were stopped and county-based DMUs were created, going back to the system of the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s.  This accomplished the objective of fewer, larger DMUs, he said. But it also facilitated the establishment of CDACs. County boundaries and county councils worked well together. On the table was the idea of a hybrid system, with the Northern Zone still be managed by habitat type rather than county. However, to facilitate the CDAC work in each county, the decision was made to go back to county-based DMUs throughout the entire state.

In the 10 years since that decision was made, he said the concern and interest in habitat based DMUs in the North has never gone away.

In the video, Pritzl also reviewed the next steps that Karel went over the NRB. The intention, he said, was to bring the matter forward to the public in October.

This would mean public hearings over the winter and a presentation of the final package to the Natural Resources Board in time for it to be implemented for the 2025 hunt and in time for the spring CDAC meetings.

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