Taylor County deer council to meet via Zoom on March 30

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Tuesday announced that the first round of County Deer Advisory Council (CDAC) public meetings will take place March 21-31.

At each meeting, County Deer Advisory Councils will consider recommendations on holiday hunts, extended archery seasons and antlerless deer quotas.

The public is encouraged to attend the meeting for the county where they hunt and give the department feedback on what they’d like to see this fall. Anyone interested in listening to their county’s meeting can join virtually via Zoom.

Taylor County’s meeting is set for 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 30.

Meetings are being held statewide March 21-31. A public comment period on preliminary recommendations made at those meetings will follow April 9-15. The CDACs will meet again April 25 through May 5 review the public input and finalize recommendations for the 2022 hunting season to the DNR.

Harvest and population metrics for Taylor County as well as all other counties in Wisconsin can be found at https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/WildlifeHabitat/deermetrics. html. They have been updated to include 2021 harvest numbers and 2022 population estimates.

Those posted numbers show a decrease in Taylor County’s overall of 13.2% from 2020 to 2021 with 5,352 total deer being registered. The overall gun kill was down slightly from 3,828 deer in 2020 to 3,754 in 2021. The more sizable decreases are shown in the archery and crossbow seasons. The crossbow harvest dropped 31.4% from 2020’s harvest of 1,636 deer to 1,123. Archery hunters killed 468 deer in the county in 2021, down 33.2% from 2020.

The total buck harvest dropped from 2,821 in 2020 to 2,686 in 2021, while the antlerless harvest dropped 20.3% from 3,347 to 2,666 despite an abundance of antlerless authorizations being available.

Of 10,000 bonus tags made available for private land, 7,866 were actually purchased by the public and 1,925 were filled for a success rate of 24.5%. Of 1,201 public land bonus tags issued, 208 were filled for a 17.3% success rate. Overall the success rate on 9,067 tags purchases was 23.5%.

Each county in Wisconsin has a CDAC to provide input and recommendations to the department on deer management within their county. Councils work with local DNR staff to schedule meetings, provide community outreach and an opportunity for public input, review population data and deer impacts on forests and agriculture, develop recommendations on county population objectives and create annual antlerless harvest quotas.

Following the CDAC process in the spring, the DNR will bring its recommendations for the 2022 season to the Natural Resources Board in the summer.

The public can submit questions about the process to DNRCDACWebMail@wisconsin.gov. More information, including links to each county’s March Zoom meeting, is available on the DNR’s County Deer Advisory Councils webpage, https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/ Hunt/cdac.