Konk,
Obviusly, YOUR not getting it. It is illeagle to leave your stand out over night on public land. That is NOT going to change. This law will be required for anyone useing a portable stand on public land. Our Warden told me he plans on checking for the names or ID numbers at the parking lots and vehicals as you enter and exit the woods. I don't know what you have been reading??? But everything I have heard at the meeting and online, has been, lettering MUST BE AT LEAST 1 INCH SQUARE. Since you blindly support STUPID laws without reading up on them, I will print the propsal I just found doing a search.

DNR says tree stand proposal made before Wis. hunting rampage

BY ROBERT IMRIE

ASSOCIATED PRESS


WAUSAU, Wis. - State wildlife experts are asking deer hunters to endorse a new regulation that would require them to put their name on any tree stand temporarily erected on public land.

The change was under discussion months before a confrontation over a tree stand erupted into a shooting rampage that killed six deer hunters on private property in northwestern Wisconsin last fall, said Tom Van Haren, a regulations specialist for the state Department of Natural Resources.

"It doesn't deal with private land and trespassing," he said. "I don't see a connection."

Outdoor enthusiasts will vote on the change April 11 during the Wisconsin Conservation Congress spring hearings held in every county.

The change would require people erecting portable tree stands on public land to label them -- in one-inch square or larger lettering -- with the owner's name, address or DNR customer identification number.

The regulation is designed to discourage hunters from leaving the stands overnight and make it easier for wardens to enforce that law, Van Haren said.

The change is one of 74 issues people will consider at the hearings by the Conservation Congress, a citizens group that advises the Natural Resources Board on fish- and wildlife-management issues and policy. The results of the voting on proposed rules and regulations get forwarded to the Natural Resources Board, which also must approve them before they take effect.

The other issues range from banning the use of electronic decoys for turkey hunting to an advisory question asking whether the state should declare wild cats as an unprotected species so they could be shot legally.

Al Phelan, the DNR's liaison to the Conservation Congress, said Friday that none of the proposed changes was the result of the shooting rampage.

Chai Soua Vang of St. Paul, Minn., told authorities he thought he was on public land Nov. 21 when he crawled into a tree stand to continue his hunting. A confrontation occurred after an owner of the tree stand asked him to leave. Vang, a Hmong immigrant, told investigators one of the white hunters fired the first shot after taunting Vang with racial slurs, a claim two of the survivors denied, according to court records.

Vang pleaded not guilty to six counts of first-degree intentional homicide and three counts of attempted homicide. His trial is set for September.

A warden in northeastern Wisconsin proposed the new tree stand regulation, a change that has been under discussion for more than a year, Van Haren said. The decision to put it on the Conservation Congress ballot was made in September.

Having a name on tree stands makes it easier to investigate violations, he said. It saves wardens time trying to track down violators and serves as more deterrence because wardens also could cite violators for not having it properly labeled, he said.

The DNR issued 54 citations for leaving a deer stand overnight on public property in 2004 and 33 in 2003, according to Van Haren.