Illinois - I'm fed up!!!!!
 

I've been meaning to write on the topic of the Illinois deer herd for awhile now and figured now might be the time to do it. In no way am I an expert on the topic. I've actually learned a lot in the past few weeks (I didn't even know what EHD was before then and what a problem it is in Illinois). Something has struck a nerve though and I really feel the need to express a few ideas.

I am really concerned about the future of hunting in our state not only for myself but for my children. I wonder if my five year old son will have an opportunity to enjoy the deer hunting experience I have as I grew up. Now I know that a lot of what is being written is probably just "conspiracy theory" and not true. But I suspect there is at least a grain of truth in some of these theories. We all know for a fact what a corrupt state Illinois has become (just look at our past governors sitting in jail cells). And I am sure that the IDNR has been run improperly (at least to some extent). What I don't know is what exactly was done/is being done wrong and what should can be done to improve. Anyway, I have been giving all this a lot of thought and have come up with the following ideas:

1. I need to get more involved. This doesn't just relate to the deer issue, but the politics of this state in general. I, like everyone else, complain about Illlinois a lot. But I'm not nearly as knowledgeable as I should be. As someone said earlier, knowledge is power. All of us need to pay more attention to what is going on around us.

2. I need to take a stand. I am a registered voter but I need to go to the polls with more knowledge on who I am voting for. I need to contact my state and federal elected officials often and not sit on my hands in silence. If we all start to stand together and make our voice heard, maybe we can make a difference.

3. Are there any associations in Illinois dedicated to hunting and conservation and fighting for hunters rights? If there is, I would be very interested in joining. I know I have searched online for a forum page similiar to Michigan's (http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/forum) but I haven't really found one for Illinois.

These are just a few ideas. I still don't know exactly what I'm going to do beyond what I already listed to help but I know I'm sick and tired of seeing this state go down the drain. And I'm not going to stand by and see deer hunting be destroyed like so much else has been in this state!

The only orgs here that get any attention are outfitters and landowners, who lined the pockets of legislators until our nonresident tags were 100% OTC. They threw us resident public land hunters under the bus in a heartbeat for a few $$$. The public land quality has nosedived in the last 7 years, while the leased land fees have tripled.

The only org I'll be joining now is the Iowa Bow Hunters Association.

This is what I've been talking about for months! I'm glad people are starting to take notice. Jeff Lampe of Heartland Outdoors is trying to get a group together right now.

http://www.heartlandoutdoors.com/sca...scatter_shots/

Thanks guys for the feedback. I remember reading posts from you Zim in the past and I knew you use to hunt Illinois quite heavily. I totally understand your frustration. Unfortunately I don't have the time and money to bowhunt other states besides Illinois. I am actually thinking of starting a blog or website with info on politicians, legislature etc that is updated regularly. Would anyone be interested?

All you can do is get involved.

One thing that most don't do though is they get involved in politics which is great and all but they don't get involved in the States wildlife commission. Most of these commissions are setup and do have public meetings where they hear from people, members from communities can be elected to advisory boards which could be you if you learn the process and show you can be an asset. Most of the top personnel are governor appointed. You gotta learn this side as this is the side that is directly related to your hunting future. There will be state regulatory groups and then there will be federally managed groups. By groups i mean species but alot of times the same group deals with multiple species.

So my advice is learn the process through and through. Get involved. Learn how to submit a petition to the regulation committee who determines new regulations on species by information provided by the advisory boards. Its a big process but if you don't get involved then you cant complain in my opinion.

I agree hole heartedly, I rarely hunt in this state only because of the camp that I would go to in Shawnee is inhabited with Obama loving a$&hats. Also because they are Cardinal fans but that is beside my point. (Thanks Boston)
1) State Farm based out of Illinois
2) Allstate based out of Illinois
3) Dailey machine runs this state, which includes various Republicans(George Ryan) on the dole of payouts.
4) Illinois does a poor job of promoting Hunting and trapping in general.
5) We will always be an anti gun state because of our media. Regardless of our recently pass conceal carry law.
Down state needs to really voice this issue to overcome the Chicago suburbs.

Here is a link to an interesting article I found on Crain's Chicago Business:

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...ON/130529803/#


Below are the voter turnout rates for the 2010 Illinois general election:

Cook county: 52.7% (64.4% - Quinn; 28.6% - Brady)
Dupage county: 51.6% (54.3% - Brady; 38.6% - Quinn)
Lake county: 51.3% (50.1% - Brady; 42.4% - Quinn)
Will county: 53.0% (50.3% - Brady; 41.0% - Quinn)
Kane county: 49.6% (53.8% - Brady; 38.2% - Quinn)
Rest of the counties - 48.1%

Average turnout rate: 50.5% (46.8% - Quinn; 46.0% - Brady)

So when you look at the numbers, it really boils down to not enough people in the rest of the state voting. Maybe what we really should be concentrating on is getting everyone one we know registered, knowledgeable, and to the voting stations on election days.

Maybe we need to a "National Take An Elderly Conservitive to the Polls Day"!!!

We need to have a "NATIONAL TAKE AN ELDERLY CONSERVITIVE TO THE POLLS DAY"!!!
We need to get the vote out.

I think a lot of people don't vote because they have no idea who the canidates are and what they stand for. I know I've been guilty of that in the past. That was why I thought it might be good to start a website or blog with political information related to sportsman in Illinois.

For anyway who does not know who the top dogs at the Illinois DNR are and how to get hold of them (I couldn't find email addresses):

https://dnr.state.il.us/director/

I really think it is important for all of us to contact our elected officials and tell them exactly how we feel (assuming everyone is registered and votes). I know I spend hundreds of hours a year hunting, shooting, scouting, planning, fishing etc. The least I can do is spend a half hour now and then to send a letter, email or make a call to let the people that REPRESENT US know how I feel!

http://www.elections.il.gov/district...byaddress.aspx

That will be an issue. When you write a letter to an elected official they really don't care all that much. Your just another letter that most likely aides will be reading. But if you are one that can articulate your letter in a way that let's them know what you want and also why it would benefit the and the state then that would be more likely to be read.

This is probably the best post I've seen that deals with the shortage of deer we are seeing. Good to see someone gets it and doesn't just blame EHD. Yes EHD has something to do with it, but there are a lot deeper causes to this that a lot of people seem to not understand.

Number 1 and 2 are the main reasons for the shortage of deer in this state. State Farm is based out of Bloomington and Allstate is based out of Northbrook. With the amount jobs and money have in this state, the government quietly does whatever they can to make them happy. People think that license money is why the state issues so many permits. The money the state takes in on deer licenses is nothing compared to the tax money these two companies pay to the state. If either of these companies even mention they are thinking about leaving, the state is going to do whatever they can to make them happy. Also, the amount of money that these companies pay out for deer vs vehicle collisions is A LOT more than what they take in with deer license fees. If either of these two companies wants to flex their muscles, guess what, as much as I hate to say it, hunters are on the losing end.

If you want to make a difference, don't just send a email saying, "The hunting in Illinois sucks, you (the government official is to blame) and I'm not hunting here again" Those emails don't do much. If you want to make a difference, go the extra mile and type out a letter. Anytime I send an important letter, I make sure it look professional and then some. Make a professional header and make sure it looks like a Fortune 500 CEO sent it. Give reasonable explanations on what you feel should be improved and the repercussions on what will happen if they don't. Personally, I then send it in a envelope via Fedex. I want them to question if this came from someone who makes $500,000 a year and has some influence in the community. Like what someone said above, emails do nothing and rarely see the intended persons eyes. A letter sent via Fedex or USPS has a lot better chance of seeing someone of importance. Think about it, you get a lot of junk email that you just delete, but if you get a personalized Fedex envelope in the email, you are much more likely to pay attention to the envelope.

I've done more than send an email to talk about what I feel they are doing wrong. Don't just send emails, send actual letters and make them look professional, we will get a lot more done by unifying and doing that rather than just sending angry emails.

Excellent post fastetti! I couldn't agree more.

I think the other important course of action people need to do is to VOTE! I have started similiar posts on other forums and I've gotten some feedback that it's a lot harder for people outside of Chicago to vote because of the distance to the polling stations. I did some research and it turns out that Illinois is a "no excuse" absentee ballot state. What this means, from what I understand, is that you can vote by mail (you just have to request a ballot ahead of time) or vote in person ahead of election date. So there really is no excuse to not vote anymore.

To put this in prespective, Brady lost to Quinn by about 32,000 votes in 2010. In that same year, 142,135 regular resident hunting licenses were sold. If even just 25% of those 142,135 hunters had voted for Brady (assuming they hadn't voted at all), or convinced someone else to vote for Brady (assuming this person didn't vote), Brady would have received an extra 35,533 votes, making him the governor of Illinois.

We almost don't see what's coming because most of us have not really been hit in the pocket books yet!?
I just heard again WE ARE PRINTING 80 BILLION A MONTH!!!
This is great BEN BERNAKE but we are going to drop like a sack of potatoes as soon as Republicans take over. THen we have explaining to dumb libs who don't get it.
And that fits in to Illinois.


WAIT!? I'm sorry I derailed the subject again. We're we talking about Hunting??
I don't believe in any of that chronic wasting disease crap is depleting our herds.
LOL!!!!

Not sure if anyone else saw this article yesterday, but it seems someone else has a similar idea to those being kicked around on here:

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/outdo...rd-abound.html

I sent Dale Bowman an email requesting contact information for his friend so I'll let you know what I find out.

For those of you who haven't checked out Hearland Outdoors website, you really should. It incorporates a lot of the ideas I have proposed in this thread. Lots of good reading!

http://www.heartlandoutdoors.com/

Am I wrong or does this Dale Bowman sound like another tool. What about the Boom of coyote population? I would take that over CWD.
Also it is complete B.S. if this guy doesn't think that we shouldn't be nipping at the IDNR's heels. It is all political all the way up the chain.
What do you guys think?

To be honest, I really don't feel I am knowledgeable enough yet to have an opinion of him one way or another. I'm trying to keep an open mind and not let my political tendencies sway my judgement as I research. Part of the problem is that I'm sure a good portion what I've read in the past few days is either skewed or plain wrong. It's really difficult to discern fact from fiction when it comes to politics and issues like this.

After conduction some searching, I did find the DNR's appropriations for the past three years. They were as follows:

2011 - $288,991,800
2012 - $251,153,300 (Reduced by 13.1% from '11 to '12)
2013 - $217,180,800 (Reduced by 13.5% from '12 to '13; 24.8% from 11' to '13)
http://www2.illinois.gov/gov/budget/...et%20FINAL.pdf

This is a very significant decrease but not all that surprising with the state of the economy in Illinois. What I found even more concerning is that I have not been able to locate a breakdown of how the DNR's budget is spent. This should be public record. Maybe I just haven't looked in the right place yet, but if it hasn't been published, we should demand that it be!

I did some further research and came up with the following:

2011 - Appropriated $288,992,000 Actual Expenditures $174,391,000 (60.3% of what was appropriated)
2012 - Appropriated $251,153,000 Actual Expenditures $170,043,000 (67.7% of what was appropriated)
http://www.state.il.us/budget/fy2013...tingbudget.pdf
http://www2.illinois.gov/gov/budget/...BudgetBook.pdf

I don't completely understand how appropriations work, but it seems strange that the DNR is using only 60-70% of the funds they are allocated!

PM I like your approach. You have more patience than me. It does seem quite strange about only using 60-70%. But then again if We had political or state jobs we'd understand it a lot better. Good luck with your findings.
Maybe it's just that Mother Nature has decreased the herd of deer?

I'm not a Grassy knoll kind of guy but I did stay at a Holiday Inn!

You work on the truth! I'll work on conspiracy end of it! Deal?!

PM needs to redo his stats as there is no way that the IDNR is getting hundreds of millions like he is showing in his last post. The Wyoming G&F budget, for instance, is only 70+ million dollars!

The IDNR covers alot more then just game and fish, would be the sum of other offices like state forestry, mining, museum, etc. So they are allocated a much larger budget.

But that still doesnt solve your questions PM. Your two links didnt work for me probably because they are PDF links or just my computer. What you need to do is seperate the allocated portions out that dont deal with fish and game and that would give you better numbers and allow you to see whether that department is either over or under utilizing their budget are not. Another thing you also may want to take into consideration is how much of that budget was set aside for grants. If it is a set amount and the grant program was either denying alot of grant applications or was not being applied to nearly enough then that would also show some budget being left over. The better question then would be what they do with that is left over?

Good points salty! I'll work on revising the numbers to give a better, more realistic view of their budget.

I'm not sure why the links weren't working but I compiled all the budget numbers into a spreadsheet.

On one of the other forum pages, this reply was sent to me:



I just sent the DNR a question asking them why the deer population in the state is being lowered? I also told them that my hunting partners and I havent filled our gun tags in several years and next year we are going to save our money and only buy 1 gun tag each. I also said that we are considering going to other states to hunt deer. Here is the response I got from Tom Micetich Deer Project Manager


Your email was forwarded to me for reply. You asked why deer numbers were being lowered in Illinois.

The General Assembly, responding to citizen complaints of "too many" deer and negative deer-human interactions -- deer-vehicle accidents, human deaths, crop and other property damage -- established the Legislative Deer Population Control Task Force in 2007. That body gave us goals for deer-vehicle accident (DVA) rates for each county and statewide in their 2008 report to our agency. Their recommendation was to lower statewide DVA rates by 14% from the 2003 level, or about 11% from that of 2007. Herd reduction was necessary where DVA rates needed to be lowered. That is what we have done. As counties reach their goal rates, they are removed from the late antlerless seasons. There have been about a dozen, or so, that have been removed in the past two years. Pending 2013 data analysis, there are a number of others which will come out next year.

There are counties which remain well above their goal accident rates which do not have adequate doe harvest. In those counties, increased doe harvest is necessary if we are to curb herd growth, and/or reduce deer numbers. Keep in mind that even in counties with relatively high deer numbers there are places with "not enough" deer; and, conversely, counties with relatively low numbers that have "hot spots" of too many deer.

If deer numbers where you are hunting have declined to less than desirable levels, then you should back off your doe harvest. Just because a season is offered (ie., late-winter antlerless only) does not mean you must hunt it. You may want to talk with those hunting surrounding property to share your concerns. Problems exist when neighbors have differing ideas for managing the same deer. While you may want more, a neighbor who has lost acres of crops to deer may have other ideas, for example.

I hope this answers your question. If you should have any other deer-related questions, comments or concerns, feel free to drop me an email at any time.

Tom


Tom Micetich
Deer Project Manager
Illinois Department of Natural Resources
700 S. 10th Street
Havana, IL 62644
ofc - 309/543-3316 ext 231
fax - 309/543-6914


To me, this is the one of the most incriminating and infuriating responses I could imagine from the DNR. To me "citizen complaints" = "insurance company pressure".

For those of you wondering, here is a list of the people who made up the Deer Population Control Task Force Mr Micetich is referring to:

JOINT DEER POPULATION CONTROL TASK FORCE
Joint Task Force Members (15 members)

•Director Sam Flood, Illinois Department of Natural Resources
•Representative Dan Reitz, Chairman of the House Agriculture and Conservation Committee
•Representative Jim Sacia, Minority Spokesman, House Agriculture and Conservation Committee
•Senator John Sullivan, Chairman, Senate Agriculture and Conservation Committee
•Senator Gary Dahl, Minority Spokesman, Senate Agriculture and Conservation Committee
•Senator Gary Forby, Appointed by the President of the Senate
•Mr. Jim Riemer, Jr., Appointed by the Senate Minority Leader
•Representative Robert Flider, Appointed by Speaker of the House
•Representative David Reis, Appointed by Minority Leader of the House
•Officer Jason Sherman, Conservation Police Officer Appointed by IDNR Director
•Director Larry Trent, Director of State Police
•Mr. Jerry Beverlin, United Bowhunters of Illinois
•Mr. Jim McFarlane, Illinois Federation of Outdoor Resources
•Mr. Kevin Martin, Illinois Insurance Association
•Mr. Henry Kallal, Illinois Farm Bureau

Joint Task Force Technical Support Group
-Mike Conlin, Director of the Office of Resource Conservation
-John Buhnerkempe, Chief of the Division of Wildlife Resources
-Paul Shelton, Forest Wildlife Program Manager
-Tom Micetich, Deer Project Manager
-Marty Jones, Urban Deer Project Manager
-Chris Hill, Systems and Licensing Manager
-Brian Clark, OLE License and Permit Program Manager

From that list your best points of contacts to ask questions would be Beverlin and Mcfarlane. All others will without a doubt be under someone else's thumb or in their pocket. You guys have big issues from what I been looking at with the way the departments have been set up and who all has influence.