Wisconsin’s "Deer Czar" urges local deer planning

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Hunters are digesting the new report from Governor Walker’s “Deer Czar.” The report makes numerous recommendations, including more local deer management.

Governor Walker used political discontent over the 2010 deer season to pay a white tail trustee to look at DNR deer management policies. The trustee, Texas researcher James Kroll, has just recommended several changes. Kroll says for one thing, Wisconsin should copy many other states and set up a deer management assistance program, where biologists, foresters and others work with hunters and landowners to set up local deer management plans. Kroll calls it bottom-up, instead of top-down management.

He says Wisconsin there should be a statewide coordinator for the assistance program. early reaction to Kroll’s recommendations varies. Democratic State Representative Brett Hulsey contends another of Kroll’s proposals would just set up more large game farms in the state. George Meyer of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation is concerned that Kroll wants too passive an approach to fighting chronic wasting disease. But Meyer likes Kroll’s idea of more intensive forest management to help deer find more food.

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Meyer urges his former agency, the DNR, to hold many public input sessions for hunters and others, to discuss the deer czar’s proposals.