Wisconsin Lawmakers Keep Ignoring Many Harms to Deer, Deer Hunting

   Lawmakers have ignored their many harms to Wisconsin’s deer herd since slashing funds to manage chronic wasting disease in 2007, outlawing earn-a-buck rules in 2011, ending in-person deer registration in 2016, and eliminating mandatory carcass tags in 2017.

   Therefore, we shouldn’t be surprised the Department of Natural Resources failed to manage  deer numbers or slow CWD’s spread with recreational hunting the past 20 years. CWD has now been found in wild deer in 59 of Wisconsin’s 72 (82%) counties. Likewise, this always-fatal disease was found in a record 1,787 deer in 2024, a record detection rate of 10.3%.

   Let’s recognize that one political party, the GOP, triggered all those changes, even though none were voter-driven mandates.

   -- Former state Rep. Scott Gunderson, R-Waterford, led the fight against CWD research.

   -- Current U.S. congressman Tom Tiffany, R-Minocqua, who’s now a gubernatorial candidate, crusaded against earn-a-buck rules as an assemblyman and state senator. Earn-a-buck required hunters to shoot an antlerless deer before killing an antlered buck.

   -- Former DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp, and a GOP-dominated Natural Resources Board led by Fred Prehn and Greg Kazmierski, ushered in a “new era of deer hunting” after 2014 with a program that neither manages deer nor slows CWD.

   -- Former state Rep. Joel Kleefisch, R-Oconomowoc, shepherded the bill that axed carcass tags in 2017.

Doug Duren and his friends in Richland County have no problem detecting CWD-stricken deer in trail-camera photos or while driving around their neighborhoods. — Doug Duren photos

   Still, let’s also acknowledge that governors from both political parties showed neither spine nor interest in fighting, blocking or reversing any of those short-sighted moves.

   Former Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, didn’t fight CWD funding cuts, and vetoed a bill that would have stripped future governors of their power to appoint the DNR secretary.

   Doyle’s successor, Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, then signed whatever reckless deer legislation Gundy, Tiffany and Kleefisch concocted. Next, Walker left the mess with Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, who has ignored CWD after making it a 2018 campaign issue.

   And now we can’t even get lawmakers to discuss restoring mandatory carcass tags, let alone mandatory registration to track CWD. You’d think they would show respect and gratitude for deer and deer hunters. Just ask them to rank deer hunting’s impacts compared to the Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Brewers, Milwaukee Bucks and the entire UW-Madison sports program. Most of us would rank the Packers No. 1, followed by deer hunting, and then a three-way coin flip for the rest.

 — Doug Duren photos

   Further, deer-license sales remain the DNR’s No. 1 funding source, even though lawmakers haven’t increased resident fees since setting the basic deer tag at $24 in 2005. Our tag costs $16.63 less than the Midwest average, $40.63; $1 less than Illinois ($25); $7 less than Michigan ($31); $10 less than Minnesota ($34); and $24 less than Iowa ($68). Only Missouri is less, $18.

   Maybe lawmakers don’t see enough photos and hear enough stories of CWD-stricken deer drooling for trail-cameras, or dying and rotting in creek bottoms and farmers’ fields. Maybe then they’d be less patient with delusional constituents who claim predators or EHD (epizootic hemorrhagic disease) are the chief culprits, and that CWD is a left-wing hoax to secure federal funding for the DNR.

   Lawmakers should also visit hunters whose lands now hold few deer, and who can’t just hunt elsewhere. In a National Deer Association article, (https://bit.ly/3W8L1Xd), Paul Annear shares his experiences growing up in Richland County and returning home to hunt his family’s land. Since 2019, the Annears have tested every deer they’ve shot, and 72% had CWD, including eight of 11 (73%) Annear shot himself.

   In spring 2023, Annear and his father approached a mature, emaciated, skeletal buck that was shaking and drooling. That dying buck explained why Annear seldom sees bucks age 3½ and older on his trail-cameras.

   In 2020, Annear’s cameras photographed nearly 30 such bucks. But in 2024, after adding about 20 trail-cameras to better monitor the property, Annear’s photos identified only seven or eight mature bucks. Hunting didn’t cause that quick 73% drop. County-wide, hunters killed 2,359 antlered bucks of all ages in 2024, down only 20% from 2,964 in 2020.

   Another Richland County hunter/landowner, Doug Duren, said his family’s farm near Cazenovia hasn’t seen such drastic declines, possibly because he has long asked guests to shoot every deer they put in their crosshairs, no matter its age, sex or antler size.

   But even though Duren’s trail cameras photograph big bucks every year, the same bucks rarely appear the next year. Duren assumes mature bucks not killed by his hunters likely died of CWD. Unlike EHD and its brief, confined infectivity window from late summer to early fall, no deer recovers from CWD’s year-round death warrant.

   Duren is jaded by all the blind skepticism he hears, and shrugs when reminded that Gov. Walker’s “Deer Trustee” process was supposed to make deer hunting fun again. Ignoring CWD through passive deer management neither slowed the disease nor boosted hunters’ morale.

   Those failures only reinforced and petrified CWD skepticism. Few hunters voluntarily test their deer for CWD, though they pay nothing out of pocket. Of the 327,950 deer killed in Wisconsin a year ago, 17,407 (5.3%) were tested for CWD.

   Still, maybe Duren’s efforts raised public awareness locally. Of the 5,072 deer killed in Richland County in 2024, hunters submitted 1,346 (26.53%) for testing, the state’s highest rate. Of the deer tested in Richland County, 448 (33.3%) had CWD. In contrast, hunters in nearby Grant County shot 6,014 deer in 2024, but submitted only 389 (6.5%) for testing. And of those, 84 (21.6%) had CWD.

   So, yes. Lawmakers must reverse their predecessors’ mistakes. They can start by increasing license fees, restoring the earn-a-buck option across farm country, and establishing a six-week either-sex gun season beginning the Saturday before Thanksgiving .

   If that sounds painful, talk to deer hunters across large sections of Sauk, Dane, Iowa and Richland counties where CWD is striking hardest. Many wish they could time-travel to 2002 when CWD was discovered in Wisconsin. Then they would demand, support and carry out the DNR’s aggressive harvest program that lawmakers stopped.

   But as regretful hunters issue those warnings, Duren notes it’s all about what we should’ve done decades ago.

   “It’s not like no one warned us about CWD 20 years ago,” Duren said. “Richland County is proof that you can’t ignore it away. If you don’t start managing your herd now, CWD will manage things for you, and you won’t like the results.”