CWD Impact in WI

[Durran87]

CWD Stifles Deer Herds in Wisconsin’s ‘Ground-Zero’ Counties

Whether you study deer-kill data or taxidermists’ work orders from the lands west of Madison, the long-predicted plunge in the region’s deer herd from chronic wasting disease appears under way. The impact of this always-fatal disease seems especially obvious in Iowa County, where hunters...

www.patrickdurkinoutdoors.com

Pat Durkin is a well known writer in this area and currently writes for meateater. This is tough to read—I’ve been hunting near the epicenter of CWD since it was found in 2001–a kid from my high school shot the 1st one discovered I believe. I’m currently fortunate enough to hunt 5 prime deer hunting properties in Dane, Iowa, and Richland counties. It was a stupidly warm November which meant less deer movement but regardless this article lays out what my friends, neighbors, and I have been experiencing first hand. It’s concerning how quickly it moved through Richland County just in the past few years.

 

[longspeak74]

I also hunt those 3 counties exclusively. Grew up in Richland County.
Over the last 2-3 years, I've seen noticeably less deer as a whole.

 

[glank09]

Multiple confirmed cases in the counties both directly north and directly east of where I live/hunt. Luckily numbers where I am at have continued to climb. I feel it is only a matter of time though…

 

[Gobihawk]

I live in Richland County. Have shot deer that tested positive for CWD. The valley I live in has had it for a number of years. Deer numbers have decreased. It's a sad situation.

 

[dtrkyman]

I guess all the folks saying when is cwd going to have an actual impact might have their answer?

Scary!

 

[OMF]

Wow this is a sad read for me. I haven't hunted WI in quite a few years but have a hunt planned there for next year. My first and long time white tail hunting area was in Washburn and Burnett counties.

I remember the first year it was found near Mt. Horeb. It was an ongoing topic of discussion with the group I hunted with and a very hot topic in deer camp.

 

[SWOHTR]

Have hunted all of them as well as Crawford. Sad state of affairs. Happy to have the fond memories of deer camp from 20-30 years ago, though.

 

[RyanT26]

When people are seeing less and less deer telling them to shoot more does is always going to be a tough sell.

 

[WiscoHoundsman]

Interesting article. Living in Iowa county and hunting in Grant near the county line. We saw less dead this year but did kill 9 last year on opening day. So that may have contributed to less deer.

Last year of the doe we shot one was aged at 8.5, 6.5, and 2.5 I believe. Not sure how long a deer with CWD will live.

 

[spike camp]

I partook in a heated CWD discussion pertaining to WI and IL maybe two years ago and I said…just wait, to the naysayers.

CWD is a bad deal, and it takes a long time to influence population.

I’ve been dealing with and living in an endemic area of Colorado for decades, and the impacts are undeniable.

 

[hunt1up]

I live in IL and hunt two CWD counties here. In the 2000-2010 range, you had to apply for firearm tags on paper. If you drew a buck and a doe tag that was good for both gun seasons(7 total days) you were happy. Some guys would only draw one tag, maybe a tag for one of the two seasons, or none at all. Deer hunting was fantastic.

Since CWD came to town, our DNR switched to essentially unlimited tags. There’s so many that there’s hundreds of leftovers. They’ve also added two late gun seasons(7 extra days) where the two buck limit doesn’t apply. You can use your unfilled tags from the earlier seasons.

Compared to 2010 or so, our harvests are down between 30-50% annually. The population decrease was by design. We still have positive CWD cases routinely and they’ve generally increased year to year. So less deer yet more cases. Maybe due to more testing, maybe due to it actually spreading, maybe both? I just wonder what things would be like if the population was managed the old way.

In our local area we’ve made a point to shoot less does. It may be contrary to the DNR plan but the only ones pulling the trigger are hunters. We have around a 1-2% positive test rate. In my uneducated opinion we may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater to wipe out half the deer considering the infection rate. Our local biologist basically said their goal is the slow it down as there’s no getting rid of it.

It’s extremely depressing.

 

[Durran87]

I live in IL and hunt two CWD counties here. In the 2000-2010 range, you had to apply for firearm tags on paper. If you drew a buck and a doe tag that was good for both gun seasons(7 total days) you were happy. Some guys would only draw one tag, maybe a tag for one of the two seasons, or none at all. Deer hunting was fantastic.

Since CWD came to town, our DNR switched to essentially unlimited tags. There’s so many that there’s hundreds of leftovers. They’ve also added two late gun seasons(7 extra days) where the two buck limit doesn’t apply. You can use your unfilled tags from the earlier seasons.

Compared to 2010 or so, our harvests are down between 30-50% annually. The population decrease was by design. We still have positive CWD cases routinely and they’ve generally increased year to year. So less deer yet more cases. Maybe due to more testing, maybe due to it actually spreading, maybe both? I just wonder what things would be like if the population was managed the old way.

In our local area we’ve made a point to shoot less does. It may be contrary to the DNR plan but the only ones pulling the trigger are hunters. We have around a 1-2% positive test rate. In my uneducated opinion we may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater to wipe out half the deer considering the infection rate. Our local biologist basically said their goal is the slow it down as there’s no getting rid of it.

It’s extremely depressing.

I’ve been shooting does but many of the neighbors won’t shoot any(these are guys with 200-300 acres). Our deer heard is way down. I’ve barely heard any shots during gun season the last few years. It took a decade for CWD to hit our immediate area but once it did it hit hard. I’ve shot quite a few positives. I still pass bucks that aren’t trophies but you never know if they’ll even survive, and all of our neighbors are selective too. I still see 1-2 deer per sit but I used to see way more.

 

[HingleMcCringleberry]

So what is the thought process in the cwd management plan? Kill all the deer to save them? Honest question.

If harvest data is showing less bucks killed, but doe harvest is unlimited, it would appear the goal of lowering the deer population is working, would it not? And if the goal is to lower the deer population to lower rates of cwd, is that working?

 

[RyanT26]

So what is the thought process in the cwd management plan? Kill all the deer to save them? Honest question.

If harvest data is showing less bucks killed, but doe harvest is unlimited, it would appear the goal of lowering the deer population is working, would it not? And if the goal is to lower the deer population to lower rates of cwd, is that working?

It’s been tried in multiple places. It sounds like a very stupid plan, but seems like that’s still to go to.

 

[OMF]

I also hunted Illinois but I hunted the Southern IL area. It was very much like you described it for permits from 2010 and on back @hunt1up. I hunted Hardin county. We had some really great hunting. Some of the best whitetails I harvested came from there.

I also used to do a late season handgun hunt/muzzle loader in the Carbondale area. Only a handful of hunters for the late season back then.

 

[OMF]

@HingleMcCringleberry, that's kind of the gist of it as I understand it. "Clear" out or reduce the deer population of an area and reduce the transmission of CWD. While it seems like it may help reduce the transmission, with how the disease is transmitted and can lay dormant in the soil, it seems impossible to eradicate it. Slow the spread maybe or reduce the number of infected deer, but the future of the deer and elk populations doesn't look too good to me.

 

[HingleMcCringleberry]

Interesting. I wonder what the population would be if management was kept status quo? Would overall population numbers increase or decrease and would cwd do the same?

I ultimately wonder where this crap came from. Was it always present and the technology didn't exist to test for it? Did it just happen one day? Weird stuff.

 

[spike camp]

Interesting. I wonder what the population would be if management was kept status quo? Would overall population numbers increase or decrease and would cwd do the same?

I ultimately wonder where this crap came from. Was it always present and the technology didn't exist to test for it? Did it just happen one day? Weird stuff.

TSE diseases mutate.
My understanding is that sheep with scrapie were kept in pens at CSU where researchers later studied mule deer, in the same pens.

The key to managing CWD is to keep the prevalence level low.
That can only be accomplished by killing deer.

Once the prevalence rate reaches something like 40-50% it becomes impossible to get the prevalence back down.

Elk have traditionally been slower to reach high prevalence rates, but if you look at what’s happening to the herds that congregate like Jackson or Estes, that’s slowly getting worse as well.