Washburn, Sawyer counties hold CDAC meetings

SPOONER — In a move similar to surrounding counties, the Washburn and Sawyer County Deer Advisory Councils (CDAC) recommended a reduction in the number of antlerless deer authorizations for the 2024 hunt.

Last year’s Washburn County’s antlerless deer authorizations were 3,100 for public land and 6,000 for hunters on private property. This year, the recommendation is for 1,000 authorizations on public land and 5,000 for private land, which reflects what the CDAC heard from the public. According to the meeting’s notes, a common refrain was there’s less deer on the landscape now, with numbers lower in the northern half of the county than in the south. One frustrated hunter reported he’d logged 80 acres and the hunting was good in 2022, but last year after hunting opening weekend, from dusk until dawn no deer were seen. It wasn’t until Tuesday of the season before he saw any.

Wisconsin DNR wildlife biologist Nancy Christel reviewed the 2023 season’s results with the CDAC members and the 15 members of the public in attendance. The following comments are a reflection of her comments taken from the notes of the meeting.

“Washburn County is 88 percent deer range, with 35 percent being public land and 65 percent private land. (According to registration numbers), there were .86 does to bucks in last year’s harvest. The bow harvest (which includes crossbows) is increasing while the gun harvest is decreasing. Despite all the snow in 2023, the spring bone marrow condition was good, which is a sign of healthy deer. The buck age ratio has been stable, although we now have to depend on deer processors instead of registration stations to determine this,” Christel said.

In-person deer registration in Wisconsin ended in 2014. As in other counties in northwest Wisconsin, the predator load is a concern to hunters. While hunting is the leading cause of deer mortality, there are other factors, too.

“(Non-hunting) mortality rates are similar across the state, but predators are a bigger factor in the north, while cars are the primary factor in the southern areas,” Christel said. “We don’t know the buck-to-doe ratio in the population, just in the harvest.”

The actual deer harvest and the changes in the law that currently oversee the hunt resulted in a retired warden questioning if the recorded numbers are accurate.

“I don’t trust the DNR’s data (on deer harvest) because there’s no dependable registration system anymore,” said retired Warden Supervisor T.J. Edwards.

Warden Evan Fox acknowledged there’s an unknown number of people that knowingly don’t register deer, but most of the cases they run into reflect hunters who forgot to register their deer.

A growing segment of deer hunters statewide would like to see carcass tags again, as all the other states in the Upper Midwest require because it would make it more difficult for poachers. Currently, hunters have three days to register their deer by phone or electronically, which makes it easy to either intentionally or unintentionally violate the law. An unknown number of hunters will shoot a deer and process it at home without registering it, then shoot additional deer using the same authorization. Edwards also saw another disturbing trend in the hunt.

“Over my 28-year career, I made only two cases for hunting (deer) without a license. Now wardens are making around five per season because of the elimination of back tags,” said Edwards.

Back tags provided an accountability for hunters and an avenue to easily determine who was hunting without a license. While its impact is unknown, this lack of buying a deer hunting license may be contributing to the reported drop in deer hunting license sales.

Another comment heard several times, according to the notes from the meeting, is the difficulty in managing deer in a county the size of Washburn because of the various deer habitats. Traditionally, the more-wooded northern half of the county sees a lower deer harvest than the more agriculturally based southern end. Currently, CDACs are required to manage a county’s deer herd on a county-wide basis, which doesn’t give them the needed latitude to take the various habitats into account. The change from habitat-driven deer management units to county boundaries also originated in 2014, after then-Gov. Scott Walker invited a Texas deer personality to Wisconsin to revamp the state’s deer management. While nothing has been formally changed yet, the concept of returning to habitat-based deer management seems to be possible based on comments from current biologists.

Birchwood resident Mike Paul is the Hunting/Conservation Club member for the Sawyer County CDAC.

“We had the biggest turnout I’ve seen this year,” said Paul. “There were 24 members of the public in attendance and they had a variety of comments. One often heard was going back to in-person deer registration for a variety of reasons, including bringing people back into the mom and pop-type stores common in rural areas. Others were concerned the low deer numbers were discouraging to young people who won’t want to come back to hunt in the area. We also heard from people who realized how difficult it is to manage the deer herd in a county the size of Sawyer with the different types of habitat. They’d like to see us go away from the county line deer management borders and go back to those driven by habitat,” said Paul, who also would like to see how the winter severity index is determined. “The Blue Hills area (in southern Sawyer County) always has more snow and the current method of recording the winter’s effect doesn’t reflect this.”

The CDAC eventually decided to recommend a county-wide quota of 800 antlerless deer, with 15% (600) going to public land hunters and 85% (2,950) allocated for private land.