Continued Decline
General Topic
I’m guessing many are staying away because of CWD. Just talked to sister in law of my son in law at Thanksgiving. She worked in a lab studying CWD. She said the lab people told her there is no way they’d eat an animal that tested positive. Smart people in my opinion.
IMO, no untested venison should be consumed from known CWD areas.
It’s the internet and declining two parent families.
I would have to agree with Charlie to a point. I believe two parent families and the internet (no offense Pat) has lessened the interest in hunting as our kids have developed a shortened attention span. Also as we are dealing with here in Oregon most people are moving into the city and if you have seen the ideals of them, not the woodsman types. To compound our issues the complete miss management of our game animals, free run of a cougar population that is 3-5 times manageable levels and now the introduction of wolves. Good luck getting a youngster an opportunity to shoot a deer let alone even see one. I primarily hunt western Oregon for Blacktail and you can go a week and not see a deer. I am sucesssful every year but not too many new hunters will want to put out that kind of effort. The eastern part of that state has been so decemated that I have not seen a decent mule deer buck in 5-6 years while elk hunting. I have three girls and have taken each one of them hunting. My oldest daughter and I have killed two good bulls together, Black Bear and a nice buck. She is hooked and will continue but not all families have the time and resources we have to do that.
Now you guys get to enjoy "Misery Breaks" CWD gibberish....we have had enough of his propaganda on the "Wisconsin" state forum. Time to spread the wealth....ENJOY!!!!
I do not write the news, simply share it. Maybe this is all fake news, and there is really no hunter decline, and no CWD spread ?
Make Bowhunting Great Again!
We are just trying to figure out why a guy from Montana sits on a Wisconsin state site spewing CWD and mass kill off nonsense to save the deer herd in state he doesn`t even live in.
I’m trying to figure out why he is from Montana and calls himself Missouribreaks?
Yeah spike, that's a tough one to figure out :)
Uhh, the Missouri flows out of Montana!
Well Wisconsin has been hit hard by CWD and also has mismanaged its herd for quite a while. Everyone I know who lives in Wisconsin hunt in other states? That’s all of two people though
The first sentence of the article and their shock and awe graph points out the huge decline in their sportsmens license. That license includes fishing, small game, and gun deer hunting. Buying this "special" license saves a whopping $2 for a resident over buying all 3 individually. If someone doesn't know they are going to use all 3 licesnses fully, do you think they are going to shell out the money up front to save a measly $2 whereas they can save 1/3 or 2/3 of the fees by just buying the portion(s) they know they will use? I know I would want more than a $2 savings to purchase the 3 up front. Honestly, with what the state charges for processing licenses, I'm shocked they even have this option still available.
As for the possible reasons for a decline in participation of the 3 activities??? In addition to the already stated of more urbanization, the internet, aging current hunters etc. what the DNR doesn't and won't admit to are the real reasons: their mismanagement of the deer herd in WI for the past decade or more, the decrease in use of the Mississippi flyway for ducks (think small game license sales), the re-introduction of wolves (don't think for a minute the wolves in various parts of WI just happened to appear on their own), the change in license structures (i.e. a small game license is no longer needed to turkey hunt as in the past as a turkey hunting license has been created; thus a shell game movement of sales) and the mismanagement of their inland fishing resources, just to name a few off the top of my head. Until the WI DNR comes to grip with their own doings, I think sales will continue to drop.
Maybe the price of the NR tags are a contributing factor?
Theyre still hunting. Theyre just spending their money on otc Colorado licenses now
Yep, everyone should run from WI, CWD is going to kill us all. You don't want to shoot any deer here. I'll let you know as soon as I contract CWD. I will thus be the first. Obviously no one wants that to happen to any of us. We are processing these tomorrow and will fry up some steaks with a couple beers as well. Sick and tired of Misery Broken as are most of WI site users.
I did not read the links, but hunter numbers will continue to decline as our landscape becomes more urban. All these folks living in “the country “ on three acre lots aren’t country folks. The large hunter numbers of the past were largely possible because we could hunt most anywhere. Not now, there are houses and subdivisions everywhere. As Charlie said, the Internet and one parent families are responsible for a large part of the decline. How many single mothers do you know that are teaching their kids to hunt ?
As for the CWD, it is what it is, and we know very little about it.
Ah the Missouri River learn something new every day. I have a good excuse I’m from the Northeast lol
Our deer herd in the core area in N. CO was doing pretty well until the DOW decided to kill them all to "save" them from CWD. It has taken more than 20 years to recover from that slaughter. Now they're rebounding nicely. They proved that CWD has potential to kill a lot of deer and elk. With night scopes.
As for fear of CWD as a cause of the decline in hunters? Maybe. About 47th on the list of reasons.
They did the same thing in N. Illinois a handful of years ago. They went on peoples property unannounced and jacklighted the herd. It was so bad people were renting billboards telling everyone what the DNR was doing.
Full time taxidermists went from 75 deer a year to 11 the next. A lot of hunters refused to even buy tags. The herd is just now coming back 6 years later.
I live in the original WI eradication zone. All it did was destroy our hunting for years. We still have cwd. None of us has died and I’m sure a few of us have eaten cwd infected deer.
Misery just spews his drivel. It’s really much ado about nothing. I’ve seen more women and kid hunters on my Facebook feed this year than any years past. I guess their smiles are fake and they don’t plan on coming back for more next year. Numbers in my state are strong. Recruitment remains strong. If we lose a few, so be it. If we lose a bunch, we still have plenty. If you don’t believe me then take a walk on almost any public parcel in my state this week. You’ll see orange everywhere you go.
If CWD jumps to humans it would be real bad. If Rosie ODonnell becomes President it would be real bad. Neither has happened.
As Jaquomo posted, the worst effect of CWD here in the core area was the culling in hopes of slowing the spread. Buddies from parts of WI tell the same story. Whitetails can bounce back in a few years but it has taken Muleys decades to start bouncing back after they realized herd reduction wasn't a great path. I fear the reaction to CWD far more than the natural effects it has on deer herds.
Same thing going on here in southern Mn. CWD detected in an escaped deer farm deer so let's kill everything that moves in a three county area for the last three years. Most of the deer killed in these hunts are fawns that don't even count in the statistics . Now these CWD kill everything areas have spread out into even more counties. You rarely see a deer anywhere around here anymore. I haven't bought a license in 5 yrs. now. Prior to this DNR debacle I hadn't missed an archery season since I started hunting whitetails in 1963!
When the DNR's, DOW's, and F&G's all get serious about shutting down deer farms (where most cases of CWD originate from), then we'll know they're actually serving the herds best interests. Until then, they're just burying their heads in the sand, as to what the real solution is.
The other consideration in the "kill 'em all" strategy is whether there may be a genetic resistance to protein folding within any natural population... Nobody knows, but even in mass pandemics there are certain individuals who resist the diseases. So let's kill them and throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Who is promoting a " kill them all " philosophy? All I have seen are herd reduction recommendations in areas with heavy cervid concentrations. With many animal diseases spread by direct contact, an initial reduction in numbers is occasionally recommended to reduce the spread. I have not seen any reports that recommend killing all the deer. Is this fake news spread by the liberal hunters and managers? Who is promoting the " kill them all " mentality? If this is true, I totally disagree with the concept.
In Montana, the goal is to reduce CWD to an incidence of 5%, not eliminate it as that would be impossible. Will take herd reduction, especially of older animals, in some areas. Good OPED article in today's Lewistown News and Argus.
Testing is not 100% accurate.
