April’s Statewide Conservation Hearings Focus on Funding

   Wisconsin’s hunters, anglers and trappers will be asked 13 ways whether they support higher license fees, sales taxes or other revenue-generating alternatives April 13-15 when they vote in the annual statewide spring hearings.

   The hearings are held by the Department of Natural Resources and Wisconsin Conservation Congress. The WCC is a 360-person citizens group that’s legislatively sanctioned to advise Wisconsin’s seven-citizen Natural Resources Board, which sets DNR policy. This year marks the WCC’s 92^nd anniversary.

   The conservation hearings began in the 1930s when UW-Madison wildlife professor Aldo Leopold and his contemporaries sought to engage the public in conservation decision-making. Each year since, citizens have crafted and voted on proposals that can become rules or laws regulating Wisconsin’s hunting, fishing, trapping and environment.

   This year's 44 proposals from the DNR, NRB and WCC are for advice only. None are binding and none can take effect this year. Questions winning approval could advance to the 2027 spring hearings as official rule proposals for NRB action. Hit this link for the full questionnaire: https://widnr.widen.net/s/ghjpxnllcs/2026_spring_hearing_questionnaire.

   Funding for state hunting, fishing, trapping and other conservation programs has plunged in recent years, largely because the Legislature hasn’t increased license fees since 2005. In addition, hunting and fishing participation has declined, which reduced license sales. Sales of firearms deer licenses, for example, fell to 550,611 in 2025, a decline of nearly 145,000 the past 25 years from 694,957 in 2000.

     Wisconsin anglers, hunters, trappers and other conservationists can vote April 13-15 on 44 proposed changes to outdoor programs during the state’s annual fish and wildlife hearings.     — Patrick Durkin chart

   Without more revenues for DNR work, the NRB predicts cutbacks and lost services such as stocking of fish and pheasants, habitat management on public lands, and law enforcement to protect fish, game and furbearers. Given those possible cutbacks, another NRB question asks voters if the reductions would make them quit participating in outdoor recreation.

   To address the lost funding and cutbacks worsened by a 66% inflation rate the past 22 years, the NRB asks voters to consider seven questions. Should fee increases cover the full 66% of lost value, or would voters prefer 25%, 50% or 75% fee increases? Other options would be a one-time fee to cover the current shortfall, which isn’t specified; or possibly a $6 hike to the current $10 inland trout stamp, which hasn’t increased since 2006.

   The NRB also asks four questions about alternative funding, such as adding a 1/8-cent state sales tax that could be used for all conservation programs. Or would voters support a general tax to replace the $20 million lost each year because of existing free or discounted licenses, such as for senior citizens and first-timer hunters.

   Other options are access fees to use all public lands, such as natural areas, and fish and wildlife management areas. Or how about registration fees for canoes, kayaks, rowboats and stand-up paddle boards?

     — Patrick Durkin chart

   The Conservation Congress also asks who would support the 1/8-cent state sales tax for conservation, noting the DNR’s budget for fish, wildlife and conservation was $120 million in 2004, but only $75 million in 2024, or 37.5% less, even as inflation rose and license revenues fell the past two decades.

   Further, the WCC asks if hunters would support raising the price of the turkey stamp from $5.25 to $10 to raise nearly $463,000 for research and habitat projects. The stamp’s price hasn’t increased since 2005.

   But this year’s questionnaire wasn’t all about how to fix fish and wildlife programs that lawmakers crippled financially the past two decades. Other questions ask if Wisconsin should:

   -- Open its cottontail rabbit season statewide Sept. 15. Since 1949, hunters in southern Wisconsin have waited until Oct. 15 to hunt rabbits, even though there’s no biological reason for the delay.

   -- Extend the archery and crossbow seasons to Jan. 31 in all farmland deer-management units.

   -- Allow bobcat hunting at night but only by calling (no hounds).

   -- Allow anglers on lakes Michigan and Superior to clean salmon and trout on their boats, and drop the fish waste overboard as long as they’re at least a half-mile from shore.

   -- Allow underwater spearfishing for catfish.

   -- Work with state and federal agencies to darken at least one blade on wind turbines to reduce bird-strike fatalities.

   -- Support legislation to reauthorize the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program for at least 10 years with up to $1 billion in funding.

   -- Allow houndsmen to work with livestock owners and pet owners to use trailing hounds to harass wolves that kill or wound pets, cattle, horses or other animals.

   -- Allow hunters to leave stands or ground blinds overnight on all state-owned land, not just north of Highway 64.

   The hearings for in-person voting will be 6 to 9 p.m. on Monday, April 13, in each of Wisconsin’s 72 counties. Hit this link for your county’s meeting site: https://widnr.widen.net/s/mcxqjtlpzg/2026_spring_hearing_locations. Online voting will be April 13-15.

   Until expanding the public hearings to offer online voting in 2019, the DNR and WCC required in-person attendance to vote. Covid-19 canceled all in-person voting in April 2020, forcing the DNR to offer only online voting from 2020 through 2023.

   Online voting surged to a record 64,943 participants in 2020, driven largely by hunters who opposed several proposed changes from the Natural Resources Board to Wisconsin’s deer-season format. Participation declined in 2021, and has averaged 16,090 the past five years, most of it through online voting.

   After in-person voting returned in 2024, it attracted only 1,001 people. A year ago, 2025, in-person attendance nearly doubled to 1,802. Even so, in-person voting accounted for only 11% of participants the past two years. Before Covid-19 and online voting, in-person voting exceeded 10,000 only four times from 1970 through 2018, with a high of 30,685 in 2000 when the DNR pushed to open the state’s hunting season on mourning doves.

   Unlike at recent spring hearings, those attending and voting in person in April will be able to vote on resolutions submitted during the meeting. Day-of submission resolutions must follow the same criteria as resolutions submitted earlier using this online form: https://widnr.widen.net/s/bzwbtlhn7m/2026_springhearing_citizenresolutiononline_submissionprocess. Submitted resolutions must deal strictly with Wisconsin.

   As usual, the hearings don’t include questions and discussions about antlerless quotas and deer-management objectives for this fall’s hunting seasons. Those issues will be addressed by County Deer Advisory Committees starting in late April. Click this link — https://widnr.widen.net/s/mx5dbjvftq/cdac_meetingschedule — for the date, time and location of your county’s CDAC meeting.