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Al Brown | Tracking the Seasons
Where are all the deer?
What is deer range?
A county park, a pine forest, a river-bottom swamp, an oak savanna, a suburban subdivision, agricultural lands, private and public golf courses, a dogwood and honeysuckle jungle or the rolling hills of the Kettle Moraine State Forest?
Truth be known, it's all of the above and then some.
Wisconsin's free ranging whitetail deer are just that: free ranging. They can come and go as they please, which seems to be just about everywhere, including our roadways.
Just last week while driving I-94 between Highway 67 in western Waukesha County and Highway 26 in Jefferson County, my wife and I counted five dead deer. And that was just along the shoulder of the westbound lane of the freeway.
Heaven only knows how many other deer are lying dead in the state's ditches.
With the 2009 regular gun deer hunt now listed as the lowest harvest in 27 years, with a statewide drop of 29 percent over the 2008 harvest, the question begging for an answer, particularly in the south central region is, "Just how did the Department of Natural Resources arrive at their 2008 overwinter deer population density (per square mile of deer range), and where were those deer when the 2009 season opened?"
It's true there was a lot of standing corn for them to hide in and yes, there was no snow to aid hunters in sighting deer, and the weather was warm so both the deer and the hunters could just sit down and relax rather than move about to keep warm.
And yes, the DNR cautiously predicted the harvest would be lower because of changes in the season structure.
But, those changes only would reduce the kill, not remove the deer from the face of the earth.
This year, as in 2008, hunters reported far fewer deer sightings, particularly of does and fawns. So the question remains, "Where were all the deer per square mile of deer range the DNR was claiming were out there?"
For example, the DNR lists northern Dodge County, in unit 68B, as having 80 deer per square mile of range (DPSMOR) and southern Dodge as part of unit 76A along with Jefferson County with 47 DPSMOR.
With all those deer supposedly running freely in Dodge County, why was the 2009 regular gun hunt harvest more than 49 percent below the 2008 harvest, 2,206 deer in 2009 compared to 4,357 in 2008?
Additionally, with Jefferson County in unit 76A, a chronic wasting disease unit with a projected 47 DPSMOR, why was its 2009 harvest 32 percent lower, 1,913 deer in 2009 to 2,982 in 2008 total?
Even Waukesha County saw a major drop in the nine-day gun harvest, from 1,190 in 2008 to 853 in 2009.
I don't have the answers to those questions, but if the DNR thought our deer hunters were restless before, they ain't heard nothin' yet.
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- Getting out on the water pays off
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- Relay For Life of Lake Country Kickoff-Monday, February 13th
- Oconomowoc Newcomers & Neighbors Monthly Mingle Tues Feb. 14
- UW-Waukesha Continuing Education Classes Offered the week of February 12-18, 2012
- The Rock River Patriots Welcome G. Edward Griffin To Wisconsin
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