Few EAB Units in 2009

[wack]

Hey Stump, nice post. Everyone should fill out the survey, I just did. But just like the survey, the DNR isn't using all the info they have and avoiding some real important subjects. Wildlife management isn't just about deer. It takes more than a deer expert to manage wildlife. Our current deer experts are only experts on killing deer. Controlling the population. Up until now, controlling deer population only meant, how do we kill enough deer. They say there's not going to be enough hunters in the future and then going to make that true by lowering the deer numbers. They've picked and chosen parts of the biological plan and ignored other parts despite the biologists warnings.

 From a biological stand point, to lower the herd to 8-20 deer per square mile maybe the perfect number of deer in a perfect ecosystem. In our ecosystem, according to the great records the DNR keeps, each wolf eats 18 deer per year.  That means a pack of 6 wolves clear out 5.4 square miles of 20 deer per square and with 8 deer per square miles, 1 pack of 6 wolves wipes out all the deer for 13.5 sq miles. Even that's hard work for a wolf pack and doesn't include 13,000 - 40,000 bears and human hunters. The miss count of bears is a huge problem now, the deer goals are now way to low, the elk program is years and thousands of elk behind, and the entire big game end of the food chain is ready to collapse. Throw in the lumber and paper industry economy, large areas of unnatural plantings of trees that are falling to disease and infestations, it's time we take another look at our renewable natural resources and re evaluate how we manage them for the future.

 Stump says," They owe us a balanced and healthy ecosystem." For the most part, the DNR and Wisconsin has come a long ways in the past 30 years bringing back many endangered species, cleaning up our water and environment, we're a few steps from being a great big game state and yet only a few mistakes away from being another disaster story. Politics have over written parts of the biological recovery plan and threatens to undo everything we've worked for. Farmers in this state can't make a living beating the land into submission to raise crops and cows but put deer, elk, bison, bears, wolves, turkeys, ducks, geese, and small game on the land and all of a sudden land owners and farmers have a renewable resource with a balanced and healthy ecosystem that can more than compete with milk prices, paper pulp products and once again add value back to the land. The tourist industry, the hunting industry, meat packing industry, fire arms industry, habitat restoration industry, film making industry all could benefit and provide jobs desperately needed in our state. If we get back to basics and take care of the land, it can take care of us and lead us out of this depression and secure the tradition of hunting conservation for generations to come. All this from simply adding a couple hundred elk and moving a couple dozen bison from a pasture to the north woods.

 

[buckhunter21]

Yes, thanks for the link....I passed it along to a few of my hunting buddies and told them to pass it on as well!

[Bigfoot]

just so everyone is aware the deer are still out their,they have just moved....i would laugh at calling this one spot on but i'm not thrilled with the 68,000 wounded deer at the end



last winter we got snow with a thick crust on top in early november and it never went away till around april(if i remeber correctly) this year it didnt snow as early and as of march 12 at least 1/2 of the ground is bare of snow cover


so is their anyone that thinks once fawns are born the dnr wont be right back to the numbers they are now of 1.5 million to 1.7 million at least







MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Wisconsin wildlife officials have compiled their final post-hunt deer population figures.
The Department of Natural Resources now estimates about 1 million deer were left after the close of all hunting seasons in January. The agency released preliminary numbers earlier this week, but had been waiting for estimates from chronic wasting disease zones.
Last April, the agency estimated the population would be between 1.5 million and 1.7 million when the fall hunting season began. The DNR now believes it underestimated the winter die-off and the pre-hunt population was closer to 1.5 million.
DNR big game expert Keith Warnke estimates hunters killed 453,000 deer last fall, down 13 percent from 2007, and didn't recover about 68,000 wounded deer.

[Goose]

If they are saying 1 million post hunt, they have got to be near 1.5 pre hunt I would think. Probably closer to 1.3-1.4
 
 

[wack]

We don't even have to wait for the DNR to claim the were right with the 1.7 million estimate, today they came right out and said it.
OAS_AD('ArticleFlex_1');
MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Wisconsin wildlife officials have compiled their final post-hunt deer population figures.
The Department of Natural Resources now estimates about 1 million deer were left after the close of all hunting seasons in January. The agency released preliminary numbers earlier this week, but had been waiting for estimates from chronic wasting disease zones.

Last April, the agency estimated the population would be between 1.5 million and 1.7 million when the fall hunting season began. The DNR now believes it underestimated the winter die-off and the pre-hunt population was closer to 1.5 million.

DNR big game expert Keith Warnke estimates hunters killed 453,000 deer last fall, down 13 percent from 2007, and didn't recover about 68,000 wounded deer.


http://www.thenorthwestern.com/article/ ... ocated=RSS

What BS will Warnke come up with next? 68,000 Deer wounded? Someone please explain to me how he figures we wounded 68,000 deer and if there are over 1 million deer left in this state, where the heck are they? Just who's side is this idiot on, hunters or anti hunters? He sure sounds like an anti hunter to me! How many died from and will die from winter kill? How many deer will the bears eat? the wolves? the coyote? the cougars? Poaches? Car collissions? natural causes? Dept. of Ag? Warnke should just wipe out all the deer now and put us out of our misery. We're just a few more lies and mistakes away now.

[wack]

last winter we got snow with a thick crust on top in early november and it never went away till around april(if i remeber correctly) this year it didnt snow as early and as of march 12 at least 1/2 of the ground is bare of snow cover

 That's not how I remember it. This year we had record snow fall in Dec., record cold in Jan. I have yet to see bare ground with 7 inches of snow last week, rain and back to cold weather, in my area this winter is every bit as bad as last winter and how much more snow ice and cold drags out this winter will determine if this winter will as bad or worse than last year. We're less than 2" short of last years snow total, and last year was I believe 3rd or 4th worst on record since the 1800's......but the deer are doing fine, fine enough to be EAB again! NOT!

[gunther89]

wack what part of the state are you in.  In the southern half of the state most of the snow is gone execpt for north slopes.  Most of the fields are cleared and deer are doing fine.  Yes we had a record snow fall for December but in the southern half we have only gotten around 66 inches.  You must live farther north or way up north but I didn't realize that they have already recieved over 100 inches of snow.  The deer are fine from cold weather.  Dr. James Kroll says that deer are able to live in cold environments because that's what there winter coats are for.  It's the deep snow that gets them.  How do you think deer in Canada survive when its -40 for an air temp.

I also wonder where they got the 68,000 wounded deer.  Must be they had people walk through everyone's woods and look for deer.  That's also how they count the deer too. 

[Goose]

"What BS will Warnke come up with next? 68,000 Deer wounded? Someone please explain to me how he figures we wounded 68,000 deer and if there are over 1 million deer left in this state, where the heck are they? Just who's side is this idiot on, hunters or anti hunters? He sure sounds like an anti hunter to me! How many died from and will die from winter kill? How many deer will the bears eat? the wolves? the coyote? the cougars? Poaches? Car collissions? natural causes? Dept. of Ag? Warnke should just wipe out all the deer now and put us out of our misery. We're just a few more lies and mistakes away now."

"Gratuitous insults will not be tolerated. If you're criticizing work, criticize the work, not the person. And always justify. It's generally better to make criticism constructive, and direct words at the behavior, not the person or firm: "What they did was idiotic" is less likely to offend than "they're idiots," which is personal."

[bigwisconsinbucks]

68,000 wounded... I sure do wonder where they get some of these numbers.

[Fish]

"68,000 wounded... I sure do wonder where they get some of these numbers."
 
Actually they use a variable of 15% to predict this in the SAK model.  Take the total harvest x 15%  less prehunt pop = post hunt.  I.e. unit 1:
 
1233(harvest) x 1.15 = 1418 - 5273 = 3855 post hunt population.
 
The 15% is proven and accurate.  I'd move away from that and move more towards deer range, social carrying capacity, buck recovery rate and Doe/fawn ratio in your arguments.
 
Also, I'd lay off the attacks on Keith Warnke, your just killing the messenger.  Deer management is set by WI law and he's just following it.  Concentrate on the few things I posted above, these are a few things that could help your arguments.
 
Later......Fish