I disagree with this statement. The DNR wants every deer dead in cwd zones and if not for the land owners that are protecting the deer on their land, every living deer would be exterminated. I think this attitude is disgusting. Colorado has had cwd for years and they have'nt reacted this way. I think, cwd has been around for many,many years.
:s6:

Me too. If they were not trying to eradicate deer then why does the DNR call them ERADICATION ZONES???

"In 2008, the CWD eradication zones and the herd reduction zone were combined to form the CWD management zone (CWD-MZ)" from the DNR website:

http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/...wd/hunting.htm

I agree they want every deer dead in the CWD zone. If they didn't why would they keep giving us more dates to shoot more deer and keep us in EAB when hunters are complaining of not seeing any deer. News station did reports and in sauk city hunters said the only reason they shot a doe was to get a buck tag and it took him till the last day to see a doe.
As far as CWD testing this is straight from there website, they analyzied 158351 deer and only 1231 tested positive for CWD. These numbers are for all the years they have been testing for CWD. That comes out to .77% of deer testing postive. Ridiculous is all I can say about it.

Huh?? Let's see...from 2002 to 2007, we saw a sideways trend...nothing more, nothing less! There is no indication of an upward trend based on one year of data that appears to show a higher infection rate. The 2008 figure that appears to show a spike is simply one years' figure that may or may not indicate anything. Even the DNR in the statement I quoted acknowledges that.

But let's assume for a minute that there is an upward trend. Increasing harvest quotas in "the zone" or statewide will do what exactly? The harvest last year was down...significantly...for the second year in a row. Chances are that there will be fewer hunters afield next year to begin with, and should the DNR suddenly decide to bring back EAB or do something else to increase the deer kill, what do you think the reaction will be from hunters, farmers who lease land, and other stakeholders? Acquiescence to something that does not appear to have any scientific or statistical basis?

Don't think so...

So who is going to shoot all the additional deer that would need to be shot under such a scenario? Al Qaeda?...

http://host.madison.com/sports/recre...cc4c002e0.html

"Colorado's worst infection is a mule-deer herd near Boulder. Today, 41% of the bucks and 20 percent of does have CWD. Its infected deer have a life expectancy of 1.6 years more years, while its healther deer live about 5.2 more years. That's likely why this unhunted herd declined 50% since the late 1980s."

"In 1997, Wyomings endemic area had an 11 percent infection rate for muledeer. It hit 15% in 1998, slipped to 13% in 2000 and worsened annually until surpassing 35% in 2007. Wyoming's worst region, Hunt ARea 65, now has a 43% infection rate."

See Wyomings CWD positive map ...

http://gf.state.wy.us/downloads/pdf/...ated2-2008.pdf

"... Clausen offered information, which appeared to be in response to the HRC, that showed a map of CWD in Wyoming units, noting a decline of white-tailed deer populations.

"(Wyoming's) Unit 65 a few years ago had 16,000 to 17,000 deer, but the current estimate there is 50 percent of that," Clausen said. The area had had no significant antlerless harvest, and the number of 4-and 5-year-old bucks on one ranch in the unit, which manages for trophies, are not being seen. ..."

http://www.wisconsinoutdoornews.com/...ews/news04.txt

First, we need to start by comparing apples to apples. We don't have mule deer in Wisconsin, and we do not have a large enough population of elk that could sustain any sort of hunting season. Second, if we look at the infection rates among whitetail deer in these areas of Colorado and Wyoming that do have some incidence of CWD, we see infection rates no where near those seen in mule deer, despite the fact that CWD has been an issue in these areas since the mid to late 1970's. So let's take a look at how CWD impacts the population of whitetail deer in Colorado and Wyoming. Note from the map from this link from Colorado that CWD prevalence has not increased outside of the area where it was first found more than 30 years ago.

http://wildlife.state.co.us/NR/rdonl...Map2009WTD.pdf

And the test results by unit...information on whitetails is about 3/4 of the way down the page...

http://wildlife.state.co.us/NR/rdonl...port_06082.pdf

Wyoming does not separate out results between whitetail and mule deer, but again the disease rates are modest, again decades after initial detection.

http://gf.state.wy.us/downloads/pdf/cwd_2007_web2.pdf

Further, perhaps we can take some lessons from the game managers in Wyoming who have been dealing with this issue far longer than we in Wisconsin, as opposed to some who are being paid to come up with a particular answer.

Yep they have been dealing with it for a long time, Wi. just wants to spend money. I am afraid it will get worse (not CWD) and the DNR will try to wipe out a lot of deer, Heck they even want to go on private land without permission and shoot the deer? I hunt in CO. and they allow cattle and sheep to graze freely with the wild game in CWD units. Sure seems like if it posed a problem that wouldn't happen.
Redclub

They allow cattle to graze in texas and WY also. The world don't stop because of CWD. It has most likely been around before they knew what it was. Mass Hysteria I say.:s1:

Why can't the DNR just let mother nature take care of this. Ultimately mother nature has the upper hand on everything and if there are to many deer in one area mother nature will take over, but there will never be to many deer in one area anymore cause the DNR has ordered a massacre on them.

Does anyone question why they estimate herd populations in the winter when they are herded up?Iwould think it would be easy to overestimate