Earn a buck dead in WI!!!

[TJD]

Unpopular Earn-a-Buck plan rejected
Eight hunting units instead designated as Zone T
By BOB RIEPENHOFF
briepenhoff@journalsentinel.com
Posted: March 26, 2005
Madison - Outside the chronic wasting disease zones, there will be no Earn-a-Buck deer hunting in Wisconsin this year.

Faced with widespread hunter dissatisfaction and strong opposition from the Conservation Congress and other groups, the Natural Resources Board voted unanimously last week to reject a Department of Natural Resources recommendation that eight deer management units have the Earn-a-Buck requirement this fall.

Instead, the board directed that the units - 51A, 51B, 63A, 64M, 66, 67A, 67B and 68A located in the northeast and central parts of the state - be designated as Zone T units with special antlerless-only deer hunts this fall.

"I think Earn-a-Buck is absolutely unacceptable to the hunter," said board member Herb Behnke, of Shawano. Behnke called the regulation a "Gestapo approach" to deer management, saying that, for many, it has "taken the joy out of the season."

Last year, the Earn-a-Buck rule was in place in 26 deer management units, plus the chronic wasting disease zones. It was the first time the rule was used outside the disease zones since 1996. Under the rule, a hunter is required to first kill an antlerless deer before he can shoot a buck.

The rule is unpopular among hunters because it reduces the buck kill and forces hunters to pass up shots at bucks. Yet wildlife biologists consider it an effective management tool in units with over-populations of deer. The rule can go into effect in a deer management unit after two consecutive years of Zone T hunts fail to bring the deer population to within 20% of the DNR goal.

Numerous complaints
Behnke said that after last year's Earn-a-Buck hunt he received numerous complaints from hunters, some saying that they planned to quit deer hunting.

Keith Warnke, big game specialist with the DNR, said the agency's recommendations were based on biological science. "Hunter dissatisfaction has to be balanced with the need for herd control," he said

In addition to the eight Earn-a-Buck units, the DNR had originally recommended 41 Zone T units and 52 units with a regular 9-day hunt.

Speaking before the board's Land Management Recreation and Fisheries/Wildlife Committee, Conservation Congress Chairman Steve Oestreicher, of Harshaw, told board members the congress would support some Zone T units, but did not want any Earn-a-Buck units. The congress proposed 20 Zone T units and no Earn-a-Buck units.

The congress' Executive Council voted in January to express unhappiness with both Earn-a-Buck and Zone T. The congress will ask an advisory question at the Spring Conservation Hearings, to be held in every county at 7 p.m. Monday, April 11, to ask whether the public would support establishing a new deer season framework aimed at eliminating Earn-a-Buck and Zone T.

Ralph Fritsch, of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation', said the federation's board has voted to support the congress' proposed deer season framework on a one-year trial basis. "There seem to be a higher level of hunter dissatisfaction than normal," Fritsch, said.

Dan Hirchert, of the Fox Valley Wildlife Damage Abatement and Claims Program, urged the board to consider the high level of crop damage sustained by farmers due to over-populations of deer.

[BowHuntingFool]

Is this for real????? I hope so. I read that one of my Units(69) was going to be a T-zone.......Looks like it's not, Hoooraaaaay!

[TJD]

My take is that unless something unforseen takes place, EAB is dead for this year. The arrogance of the DNR finally caught up with them. Instead of working with hunters and landowners, they just thought they could rule by decree and get away with anything they wanted. Now, they need more money and is it any suprise that the majority of sportsmen are so strongly opposed to it?

For years, the DNR made it more difficult for the majority of hunters to even take a doe. You had the pain in the neck "hunters choice" where you had to pony up a few more bucks for the "privledge" of shooting a doe, or pony up even more dollars for a bonus tag. Almost every year at the meetings, someone would ask why deer tags weren't either sex, or why they would not give out a free antlerless tag. And each year we got the same, condescending answers: "It would complicate herd management", "We could have units where TOO MANY does would be harvested", etc. Then almost out of the blue, we have "overpopulated" units all over the place, in some areas being described as a "crisis". Then we were told to basically shoot every doe we see to "help manage the herd".

I have shot AT LEAST one doe for each of the last 10 years with one exception. If the DNR would manage towards a stable population, we would have a stable population. So now the DNR will have to work with hunters again, instead of trying to rule by imperial edict.