Quota, permits recommendations unchanged by Taylor County deer council

Taylor County’s Deer Advisory Council (CDAC) voted 7-1 on May 5 to stick with its preliminary recommendations it made in March for the 2021 hunting season, setting a total antlerless harvest quota of 3,100 and putting a total of 11,200 bonus authorizations up for sale.

The breakdown of those totals includes 10,000 bonus tags for hunters on private lands with a goal of harvesting 2,800 deer. The permit level is based on the approximately 28% success rate hunters had filling those tags last season. The quota is up 300 deer from last year, while the tags jumped from 8,350.

On public hunting land, 1,200 permits are being recommended to fill a harvest quota of 300 antlerless deer. The permit level is based on a 25% success rate, just over the 24.2% rate at which hunters filled those tags in 2020.

The final recommendations now go the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ Deer Advisory Committee, which will review them and provide comments to DNR leadership. DNR leadership staff will send its recommendations as well as the CDAC’s recommendations to the Natural Resources Board, which is set to approve quotas and permit levels in June.

During last week’s Zoom meeting, council members reviewed results from a public survey that was available on the DNR’s website April 12-25 before two separate votes confirmed the initial recommendations. The survey was completed by 117 people, a far cry from the 435 who responded to the last CDAC survey this winter regarding the county’s three-year population objective and the 482 that responded to last year’s quota and permit survey.

Overall 75 people supported the harvest quota of 3,100, while 41 opposed it with 30 saying it was too high and 11 saying it was too low. The 10,000 private-land tags were supported by 63 people and opposed by 44. Of those opposing, 38 said it was too high and five said it was too low. The 1,200 public-land tags drew a more split reaction with 54 supporting and 50 opposing. Of those opposing, 39 said that was too many tags and 10 said that wasn’t enough.

“There were a lot comments that thought we were on the high side and I tend to feel that we’re a bit on the high side,” said Chip Courtney, who represents sportsman’s clubs on the council. “That said, we really didn’t increase the antlerless quota. We modified the tags based on harvest success, so I think we can justify that. I think we’re pretty close to where we want to be in most areas in the county and I think that the majority of the sportsmen will accept our recommendation.”

As always, the survey drew a wide range of opinions in its open comment section. Among the more popular items were a concern for low deer numbers on public land, requests for the return of carcass tags to curb illegal harvests, negative effects of baiting and feeding and concerns that deer numbers are getting too high and causing agricultural and forestry damage.

Brian Bucki, representing landowners in the Deer Management Assistance Program, said the concerns on public land are something he hears most often.

“In the past 14 years we’ve never went below 400 bucks killed on public land,” he said. “But in 2019 it was 371. I know we kind of considered the snowstorm in there. But this past year in 2020, with a record amount of people out there with the COVID and there wasn’t one bad day for the nine-day gun season, we’re at 395 and that’s the second-lowest in the last 14 years. So I think there is some concern on public land by the people. I think the deer metrics are kind of shadowing that.”

Bucki ultimately supported the quota of 300 and the 1,200 tags for public land, but he said the public land harvest is something he’ll be watching closely after this fall.

Forestry representative Jake Walcisak was the no vote. As he consistently has in the past, he made his case for higher quotas and permit levels.

“By talking to my forest landowner contacts, loggers and forestry professionals in the forest community in Taylor County I can strongly say that these people are requesting a lower deer population,” Walcisak said. “While that does not line up with some of the other public comments, I have a very large network with the forest industry in Taylor County and these individuals are calling to reduce forest damage and forest impacts which in turn is a lower population.”

Walcisak added that he trusts the science behind the DNR’s population models that suggest the council could have set its numbers higher and still grown the herd to some degree under its increase objective.

“I do entrust the DNR experts and the complexities that they look at on a daily basis to come up their population model and I have faith in science-based management,” he said.

Several council members stated that the anecdotal information provided in the comments section of the survey as well as those they hear on the streets or in their line of business do matter when they annually consider quotas and permit levels.

“I would certainly agree with Jake that we need to rely on a variety of different metrics, a variety of different sciences to accurately estimate the deer herd, but I don’t think we should dismiss anecdotal evidence either as a major part of our evaluation process,” Courtney said.

The council’s DNR wildlife liaison, Price County biologist Derek Johnson, agreed that finding the right numbers for public land is tricky right now. He maintained that higher numbers on private land would be doable. The previous night, Price County’s CDAC approved a recommendation for 12,500 private-land tags.

“On private land it probably would’ve been nice to go a little bit higher to maximize opportunities to those areas that we’ve heard are having issues,” Johnson said. “But some of those people have other opportunities like damage tags and things like that. On the public land, it’s just about giving out opportunity.”

At meeting’s end, transportation representative Scott Mildbrand went on record, agreeing with those who commented that carcass tags need to return.

“I see in the public comments that people feel there’s abuses to that as do I,” he said.

Council chair Mike Riggle noted that change has to come from the state legislature and he urged anyone listening in to contact their state representatives in an effort to get the tags reinstated.