Cause and Effect of Wisconsin DNR and CWD

     Chronic wasting disease is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy found primarily in the deer family.  It is infectious and spread through saliva. It was first recognized in the mule deer of Colorado in 1967.  It was scientifically identified as a TSE in 1978.  In 2002 the first case was finally diagnosed in central Wisconsin in Mt. Horeb.  Since this date the DNR has exhausted resources and put in place numerous changes in the hunting regulations allowing hunters to harvest far more deer then necessary.  Chronic Wasting Disease hit the news stations at a rapid pace scaring hunters from the sport.  Depending on how close you where to ground zero you could be subject to what they call the eradication zone or the herd reduction zone.  My land fell right on the outskirts of the herd reduction zone and we felt the effects in a very negative way.

               There has never to this date been a confirmed case of CWD in a deer in the county I hunt in yet for ten years strait I was encouraged to shoot as many deer as I could to try to wipe out the herd.  The DNR treated the problem like it was a zombie apocalypse.  Before CWD, every hunter was given a buck tag and had to pay twelve dollars extra for a chance at a bonus tag, which meant I could shoot a doe.  That was it!  The result of this was a good balance of the deer herd.  As soon as this mysterious and scary disease was recognized in one small town of the state, the tags where basically limitless.   Soon, nearly state wide, hunters were forced into “earn a buck”  where you need to tag and register a doe before you are allowed to shoot a buck.  This in turn forces you to shoot more deer.  Why you ask?  The DNR doesn’t know how to cure this disease.  More so, they were sloppy with their appointed responsibilities to the state of Wisconsin and allowed a deer farmer to bring in out of state deer that carried the disease that eventually hopped a fence to spread it to our wild deer population.  So what do we do with that which we do not understand?  Wipe it out and start fresh!  That was their only plan. Kill. Kill. Kill.             

               Our land was littered with deer in my early childhood.  It was nothing for me to go onto our eighty acre chunk in the Reedsburg area and see twelve deer in just a morning stand in the woods.  Everyone saw deer, everyone shot deer, the herd was appropriately reduced, everyone had fun!  Now, with that many deer in our area and unlimited tags what do you think human nature led everyone to do?  The deer herd was dramatically decreased in just a few years.  Deer trail that used to be wore down to the dirt like cow paths are grown over and unused.    The DNR then pulls a stunt and reports statewide that according to their horribly inaccurate manipulative surveys, the deer numbers have actually increased.  This was not true.  The woods was dead.   The herds in CWD zones were down as they planned but the zones outside of CWD the herds stayed the same or grew because a lot of hunters were scared off by the disease and those that weren’t still only had a select amount of tags to fill.  So what do they do next?  Now for every deer you shoot they reward you with four more doe tags daily!  That means with earn a buck, you have to shoot a doe, register it, be awarded four more free doe tags and the ability to shoot your buck then go out a shoot five more deer in that same day.  Also, for every one of those deer I’m allowed to get four additional doe tags as well!  Needless to say, there is no need for anyone to poach in the near future.  Soon there are no deer.  Then they report surveys that the purchase of licenses is down and they use that as their justification for allowing hunters to kill so many deer.  It was a vicious circle that slaughtered the deer herd and justified their actions in doing so.

               The DNR warned people against eating deer in earlier years of this pandemic.  Many hunter hung up their guns because of the DNR’s over embellishment.  There was no proof leading to believe you could get sick from, or contract this disease from deer.  Where my family hunts many of the locals are on the poorer side of the economy.  These family’s hunt deer for meat.  They used to poach deer for meat to survive, which I am ok with, but now have no need to anymore.  With no fear of being caught or  the need to poach in general, these families certainly took advantage of the situation shooting as many deer as they needed to fill their freezers for their families of four  five to last the winter.  When their freezers are full they would shoot a deer to help out their neighbors half empty freezer.  With no regulation and a seemingly bottomless bowl of nearly free meat why would any human stop grabbing.  Some even bought into the disease as if it was their duty to help eradicate the deer.  Some shot to kill and leave.  I have heard of numerous cases where people will shoot a deer out of spite and left it lay where it died. 

               Present day, it is nothing for me to go out into the woods and not see a deer.  We plant corn, soybeans, clover, and manage our land the best we can to try and reverse what the DNR has done.  I asked a member of the DNR about seven years into this massacre how many deer that they have tested from my county tested positive for CWD.  His answer was, “As of today….zero.”  I looked him square in the eyes and asked why in the hell are we still in the herd reduction zone.  He broke eye contact from me, shrugged his shoulders and went on the next hunter in line to have their deer tested.  My deer were never infected and there was no reason for this attempted state wide annihilation.  Ask any old timer and he will have at least one story of a time he came across a sickly looking deer.  This disease has been around for a long time and did not need this drastic of measures to remedy the problem.  I just hope that there are enough hunters left to continue this tradition and learn better for next time not to let the DNR pull their strings.  Despite my completely one sided bashing I just gave to the DNR, I’m actually not entirely against them but it was their “lack there of” that put us in this mess to begin with and their ill conceived attempts to fix the problem has lead me to a bitter taste in my mouth and a lack of good hunting memories to share with my brothers and sisters of the sport.