After reviewing input, council sees no need to change quota/permit numbers

TAYLOR COUNTY DEER COUNCIL

Deer harvest quotas will be about the same as last year under the final recommendation approved by members of the Taylor County Deer Advisory Council Tuesday night.

Under the final recommendation, council members approved a 2,500 deer quota and 10,000 tags for private land and a 250 deer quota and 1,200 tags for public land in the county. According to CDAC chairman Mike Riggle, this is the same number of tags as last year.

Tuesday’s meeting held at the Red White Theatre at Medford Area Senior High School was the first in-person meeting for the group since 2019. While most members attended in person, members Jim Livingston and Jake Walcisak appeared via Zoom. There was a sparse crowd of public attendees with one present at the theater and another attending online.

The council’s recommendation was approved on a 6-2 vote with Walcisak and Allen Koeffler opposed. Walcisak said he voted against the recommendation based solely on wanting an increase to the number of deer harvested on public land. Koeffler said he voted against it because he would like to have the harvest quota for public land decreased.

Council member Brian Bucki explained that he had flipped from a no to a yes vote from their earlier meeting this year due to the feedback in the 2022 online public input report which he described as being a “report card” of how the public viewed their actions. He said while he would personally like to see the number on public land lower, it appeared that the public was ok with the direction the council was taking.

The bulk of the hour-long meeting was spent reviewing the 2022 online public input report. A total of 145 people filled out the survey with 66 of them residents of the local deer management unit, 72 other residents of Wisconsin and four non state residents.

There was overwhelming support for the antlerless harvest goal recommendations with 94 supporting and 46 opposed. Among those opposed 27 thought it was too high and 19 thought it was too low with 5 having no opinion. The permit recommendations for private land likewise drew overwhelming support with 100 supporting and 34 opposed. Of those opposed 30 thought it was too high and four thought it was too low. There were 11 people who did not express an opinion.

“On private land people seem to be in support of what we are doing,” Riggle said.

When it came to public land permits, the result as evenly split with 68 supporting the permit numbers and 67 opposed. Of those opposed 45 thought they were too high and 22 thought they were too low with nine having no opinion.

“I was not surprised,” Riggle said. “We made half the people happy and half the people not so happy.”

Riggle said the area he was surprised at was the 22 people who thought it was too low. He said adding those to the 68 supporters brings it up to 90 people who would like to see it at the current level or higher, double the number who think it should be lower.

In addition to input gauging level of support of the plans, the public input report included comments from hunters and others.

“There is a common theme. It is the same people writing the same thing every year,” Riggle said. As in the past wolf and deer predation remain concerns as was the baiting ban.

DNR wildlife biologist, Emma Doden cautioned that the county needs to not let the deer herd get out of control too quickly. “I think we could have more deer harvested on private land,” Doden said.

She noted that at the last meeting, the winter severity index was at 40 and that it has since been raised to 45, slightly higher than the rating for 43 used in their modeling for the impact to deer numbers. Anything below 50 is considered mild.

Council member Chip Courtney said he felt the committee has done a good job keeping the focus on the data. He noted the data continues to show a slight decrease year over year. Yet, he said, the DNR expresses concern that the county is too low with its tags and that they may overrule the CDAC recommendations.

Riggle agreed, noting that at the state level, when the recommendations were being reviewed he expressed concern that the deer numbers were not where the models predicted they would be. He noted that the models have a margin of error and that he accepts that, but noted the actual numbers were consistently below the estimates and never above them.

Courtney noted that the county has taken a conservative approach since the CDAC was created and said they needed to continue doing so.

“We have been told to focus on the data, and that is what we need to continue to do,” he expressed frustration that there are those constantly sounding the alarm for a deer population explosion which has not happened.

One area of discussion centered on the deer on public lands in the Taylor County Forest. According to Walcisak the amount of browse was about the same as prior years but the number of deer monitored was double with a large increase in unique identifiable bucks. He suggested this may be the result of the deer being more mobile this year than in previous years.

Riggle noted that with the baiting ban, which virtually eliminated baiting on public lands, that the deer likely could have been moving around more. Others on the council were more skeptical of the number of deer being up and the browse damage being the same.

Bucki expressed frustration at the lack of stability in the numbers the council is given. “It gets a little confusing when all your black and white data is so questionable,” he said.

The recommendations from the local deer advisory council will go to the state with the DNR setting the final tag numbers.