White Tailed Deer Herd Management
Position Paper - Wisconsin County Forest Administrators

Positions:

1. Wisconsin’s deer herd is being perpetuated at populations much higher than the science indicates is healthy for Wisconsin’s forests.
2. The state’s efforts at herd control are flawed for several reasons:
   1. Politics
   2. Unit goals are not taken seriously
   3. Baiting and feeding

Proposed solutions:

1. Get politics our of herd management and allow the experts to use the science of wildlife management and their expertise.
2. Make reaching unit goals mandatory – have consequences that follow if a goal is not reached.
   1. earn a buck
   2. longer gun seasons
   3. earlier gun seasons
   4. less emphasis on buck kill and more on harvest goals; perhaps allow harvest of one buck per year per person in any season and then earn-a-buck for second
   5. extended or emergency hunts as needed to bring a unit to goal
3. End the debate over baiting and feeding of deer and enact a ban on both.
   1. science indicates baiting and feeding expand the opportunity for the spread of communicable diseases
   2. baiting and feeding disrupt the normal distributions of the deer herd, interfering with harvest efforts
   3. baiting and feeding add extra energy into the deer herd
   • interference with normal swings in herd populations due to environmental factors
   • artificially increases the reproductive capacity of the herd

Offered this 30^th day of March, 2007 by unanimous vote of Wisconsin County Forest Administrators

Forwarded to:

1. Board of Directors of Wisconsin County Forests Association
2. WDNR Secretary, Scott Hassett
3. Governor of State of Wisconsin, Jim Doyle
4. State Forester, Paul DeLong
5. Majority and Minority Leaders of Wisconsin Senate and Assembly
6. Legislative Committees:
• Senate Environmental and Natural Resources - Mark Miller, chair
• Assembly Forestry - Don Friske, chair
• Assembly Natural Resources - Scott Gunderson, chair