So a few years or so ago someone found the deer herd in southern Wisconsin had some animals with CWD. I belive that they found it in a captive deer or elk herd and then found it in the wild population but it really doesn' t matter what' s done is done.

The solution that they came up with was to kill off as many deer as they could. They opened the flood gates to hunters to take out the local populations of deer and then test them to see if they carried CWD. The bad new is that there was a good number of deer with CDW. THERE WAS NO GOOD NEWS.

The hunting in these areas is now nil and I' m sure that the hunters are a little nervous about eating the meat from their hunts without proper testing.

There is a solution to this problem that we as sportsman need to take to our DNR offices, legislators and even the National gov. We must swallow hard and eliminate the raising, transportation, and domestication of elk and deer. Captive deer and elk ARE the reason that a single desease was transmitted accross 1000 miles of open grasslands.

The arguments here are that we would be, in effect, putting people out of business for good. That is not completelly true. These people own land and farms that could be turned into other domestic meat operations such as bison, beef, poultry, etc. Yes that is not as lucrative as elk and deer but we must be strong and look at the bigger picture.

Hunting in WI is a billion dollar industry. Hotels, resturants, meat lockers, bars, gas stations, sporting goods stores, and even web sites need this seasonal income to make a good living. In the area that I hunt I purchase morning coffee and rolls, gas, dinner, beer, etc at leaset 15 days per year. I' m usually never alone I have one or two friends with. The dollars spent on these luxury items will be spent elsewhere if I have nowhere to hunt or have to relocate my hunting to a non-infected area. Now let' s look at the " non-resident" hunter. They purchase hotel rooms at a time that is generally slow for tourism and travel. They eat out nearly every meal. They frequent the bars and purchase drinks and food. They purchase extra gear that they forgot or could not bring with them. They may even lease land from a local farmer that can use that money to subsidise his/her income. Without our spending many of the mom and pop country stores, cafes, bars, and motels will be without that " 1 good week" that makes the difference between making it and boarding it up.

These " game" related farms could have policed themselves. Spent money on research and found tests for CWD that were less invasive (currently the animal must be killed to preform the testing), they could have set up a certification process that would track the animals and trace back the animals to the original farms. But they didn' t. They didn' t and now it' s time to do what is best for the population of animals that bring so much joy AND financial stability to so many people.

Send a letter to your local DNR or Game Department. Let them know how you feel. If they say that it is out of their hands go to your representative and get the bar, resturant, hotel, and convienience store owners to sign up too. Get rid of the cause before you too sit around wondering what you are going to do come fall.

Mac

I' ll trade ya hunting spots Macdaddy.[:' (]

macdaddy , the reason the game farms don' t police themselves is that cost money , and all they want to do is make money not spend it , now i' m not saying all the game farmers are like that but most are and that' s the bottom line , when you hear how much a buck with a giant rack goes for thats all they want is the money , because i' ll bet that that deer will eat better than the guy who has that deer penned up family does until he sells the deer .

As another point of view Thanks to urban sprawl and wanting to shoot the cute little deers at there feeders in there back yards. If you got any public huntin areas in the madision area...not really. I cannot find a spot all I need to do is croos the road. Lets get the snipers in there so what ever meat is that could be used gets wasted just like the T-zone hunts. How many buck get shoot during that!!!
Sorry for being a bit owlly, but hey if you can get me in any area that isnot pressured or someone would let me hunt in there back yard and can take my 5 yellow tags. Iam there and I will have a 4 others with me. I got a spare chest freezer, so they have time to be tested. Yes people are losing but I heard alot of rumors of why....I will go with the thought that this has always been there and now that the deer are concarated in any area the CDW comes evdent. The Dnr loses the most....with out the fees. It isnot going to stop me or my freinds, I will more then glad to help elmenated the deer.
thanks

Actually, there was some good news from the DNR tests. Save for one (maybe two)deer found near at the Illinois border, the only animals that were found to have CWD were in the eradication zone...or on game farms. Deer were tested from all over the state. This tells me that CWD was NOT always here. And so far has not gotten a chance to spread much. When one deer was found NEAR the edge of the eradication zone, they expanded the zone (there is also a " buffer zone" that they are also thinning the heard and doing lots of testing).
As unpopular as it may seem, I think the DNR is doing the right thing. I don' t believe that baiting (when done within the rules that WERE allowed) had anything to do with the spread, as the areas that get the most " enthusiastic" baiting turned up no animals with CWD. (not starting a baiting vs. non-baiting thread...just my opinion on the cause).
The hard part is that until you kill the deer, it' s very hard to tell if they have CWD until late in it' s progression. An animal from outside the state had CWD and was brought here (he didn' t swim the Mississippi!!!)...most leikly to a game farm, and it spread from there. WITH LUCK we MIGHT be able to stop it....or at least keep it in check.

Toby: I think I managed to comprehend a couple of the things you were trying to say. It was tough tho. With an upper 90 some percent probability, we know where CWD is in WI. If it was always here, it would be state wide. Or at least in different parts. There is lots of public land in the E Zone. There are also lots of landowners allowing public access. Either of their own free will, or an agreement with the state called Forest Crop Land. If your as ambitious as you say, come on down. Take some advice tho, leave the army at home.

Here in KY we have a growing elk heard that came from other staes. We have no reported cases of CWD & I hope we never do. If the elk would have had CWD then we would start seeing cases. We no longer bring them in from other states & have a self maintaining heard.

I think the key is to regualte the populations of deer in areas of high density so they do not become carriers. I think a lot of variables are in the mix on this one that no one really knows yet. I hope in the near future they figure what is the true cause of CWD is & what to do with it.

The main key should be hunters not being scared to hunt because of CWD. If you have regions of high densities try to hunt those areas and take plenty of does. The overall health of your deer populations will be better anyway!