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Frederica Freyberg:
Big changes for the 2014 deer season. The Department of Natural Resources will not allow the harvest of antlerless deer in 19 northern counties and one portion of central Wisconsin. They will be buck-only zones due to deer population loss over the harsh winter. We sat down with the DNR's Kevin Wallenfang to talk about the decision and asked if the quota of zero for antlerless deer is unusual.
Kevin Wallenfang:
Well, we were digging through the numbers and could not find a year that we’ve done this anytime in recent history. It’s very unusual to have the low numbers of deer that we have, extensively across the north right now. You know, we’ve always got pockets of low areas, but not to the extent that we do now.
Frederica Freyberg:
So what percentage of deer then were lost due to the harsh winter?
Kevin Wallenfang:
Well, that’s not easy to say. I mean, we don’t have any kind of a perfect measurement that would tell us that. We use various methods to measure the winter severity. We have a winter severity index that measures snow depth and temperature. And that is, you know, usually a good gauge for us to say, you know, we could expect losses in the, say, 20% range. A better indicator, though, that we’ve got out there this year is we actually have several hundred deer with radio collars around their necks that we monitor for other research purposes. And, you know, this year we’re finding exactly what you would expect. The deer that are hit hardest by this are last year’s fawns, so in one study area we’ve lost approximately 40% of last year’s fawns, which is pretty significant when you look– You know, two years ago we had 80 degree temperatures in February and I think we lost about 6%. So we do lose some deer every year no matter how good it is. But we’re looking at other things, too. We’ve been doing health assessments of car-killed deer this winter just to see what kind of pregnancy rates we’re seeing, what kind of body reserve, fat reserves that they’re carrying as well. So we look at all those little indicators. From past experience of winters that are similarly severe, we can get an idea of how many fawns might be born this spring, or at least a ratio. So all these little pieces come together and we try to make a determination.
Frederica Freyberg:
So how long might it take for the population to rebound if you limit the hunt?
Kevin Wallenfang:
Well, that also is very difficult to say, and it’s going to change from area to area. It will depend on habitat. It will depend on predator impacts. The one baseline, I guess, that I would use is in 1995 and ’96 we had two of the worst back-to-back winters that we’ve ever seen in the state. And yet five years later we had on all-time record deer harvest of over 650,000 deer. So it can happen very, very quickly. Our deer are evolutionarily used to this kind of weather. They reproduce at rates that bring them back quickly. So all things being equal, it wouldn’t take that long. But, like I said, we do have some habitat issues in the state. We have more predators out there now than we ever have, other issues that can work against them.
Frederica Freyberg:
What’s the reaction from hunters?
Kevin Wallenfang:
Well, as far as the zero quotas in the north issue goes, hunters are supportive of that, at least the majority of them are. We’ve done surveys this spring. Annually we talk to the public. We work with the Wisconsin Conservation Congress. And you know, we haven’t heard really any negative feedback right now. Hunters like to see deer. Deer numbers, without question, are lower than they have been in a long time in the north. And we’re responding to that and doing what we can to help them rebound.
Frederica Freyberg:
Are expectations of seeing a lot of deer kind of set possibly artificially high because of the boom years?
Kevin Wallenfang:
Well, there’s a good possibility of that for a lot of people. Hunters do like to see deer. And this year, you know, a lot of the conversations that I’ve had with hunters when they start, they’ll say, you know, for the last 13 or 14 years things have really gone downhill. Well, their bar was set in that 2000, 2001, when we were shooting a lot of deer in the state. So there are expectations that are extremely difficult to live up to. But, you know, a lot of people, too, they are also reasonable about it and they realize that at that time there was an awful lot of deer on the landscape. But they’re looking for a happy medium somewhere. They don’t like what we have now. They realize that back then there were an awful lot of deer. But, you know, they’re looking for that groove, somewhere in the middle, where they can still see plenty of deer, maybe have a chance to get one every couple of years. Their expectations, in a lot of cases, are reasonable.
Frederica Freyberg:
So how difficult is it to find that perfect spot for the DNR?
Kevin Wallenfang:
Impossible. We– You know, we don’t just manage deer for hunters. We have a lot of responsibility that rides with our deer herd. Hunters certainly are a huge part of it, and they are a very strong voice in deer management. But, you know, in some part of the state– parts of the state, we have agricultural damage we have to try to balance. We have forestry damage that we have to try to balance. So there’s a lot of things out there. And it’s changing, but we have changed the way that we’re managing deer in the state. We don’t have specific population goals for each deer management unit anymore. We’re going to a population objective, of whether we should see more deer, less deer or keep things stable. And that is based on a lot of those indicators out there.
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