JERRY DAVIS: Earn-A-Buck is here, so learn to live with it
By JERRY DAVIS / Freelance outdoors writer
Deer hunters should think of this year’s archery and gun Earn-a-Buck seasons in 59D, 61 and 72 as qualifying hunts. Advertisement
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In other words, a deer hunter in an EAB unit must qualify to hunt bucks by first shooting an antlerless deer. Hunters cannot proceed to Step 2 until they complete Step 1. If they do not, or will not complete Step 1, they cannot hunt bucks.
The reason for EAB is simple. There’s a need to reduce the herd by taking deer out of the population that have a greater impact on increasing the population.
Wisconsin has made the process easy by allowing buck authorization to be earned by killing an antlerless deer in any EAB unit, with any weapon and during any season. And the tags for these antlerless are issued free when a license is purchased.
A few hunters will look at EAB as unnecessary. They will continue to carp about EAB and Zone T and make excuses why EAB seasons are unfair or unnecessary. However, most hunters are more in tune with deer ecology.
Hunters wishing to see more deer than an ecosystem can accommodate should go to a game farm to hunt. Our ecosystem, which includes homeowners and landscape shrubs, farms and crop fields and forests and seedlings, to name a few, cannot accommodate deer populations as high as a few hunters want.
A doctor recently told me that Lyme disease alone is reason enough to reduce Wisconsin’s deer herd because in some parts of Wisconsin nearly 20 percent of the deer ticks carry the bacterium that causes Lyme disease.
EAB is here, so let’s deal with it. Let’s be wildlife managers and conservationists and help reduce the deer populations in 59D, 61 and 72 close to goal, as required by administrative code. If that is accomplished, future EAB seasons may not be necessary.
EAB seasons have regulations that must be followed.
“Because there are some hunters who don’t like EAB, we’ll be watching for people shooting bucks without having first shot a doe,” said Russ Wilson, Department of Natural Resources conservation warden in La Crosse. “Some hunters might try to use another hunter’s antlerless deer to get an authorization sticker, or bring in a doe from a non-EAB unit.”
Wilson wants hunters to make sure they understand that the antlerless only Zone T hunts are antlerless hunts for everyone, even those who have earned a buck sticker.
In 1996, 16 Wisconsin deer management units had EAB seasons and the herds were reduced closer to goals. None of those 16 units were in western Wisconsin.
“For three years before EAB in 1996, hunters were killing 1.3 antlerless deer for every buck in what became EAB units. In those same units, in 1996, hunters killed 4.3 antlerless deer per buck,” said Dave Linderud, DNR wildlife manager in Alma, Wis. “Many of the 26 units in EAB this year have been in Zone T for four years. The Zone T season structure hasn’t worked in reducing the herd.”
If hunters in 59D, 61 and 72 can duplicate what hunters did in 1996, is that likely to bring the herd within 20 percent of goal and eliminate the need for EAB for 2005?
“Hunters today don’t seem to have the same desire to shoot antlerless deer as they did in 1996,” Linderud said. “My guess is we won’t have the same kind of antlerless harvest and I’d guess we’d be in EAB for several years.”
Hunters have an opportunity to prove Linderud wrong and show they are hunters first and trophy seekers second.
Linderud believes the whole mentality of deer hunting has changed since 1996 with some hunters wanting more deer and bigger bucks.
“Even with more tags, free tags, more liberal seasons, we just can’t get a deer harvest it takes to reduce the herd. We have more deer than we had in 2000 in Unit 61,” he said.
Linderud is bothered by some hunters’ singular focus on trophies. These same hunters fail to think about vehicle collisions, crop damage and the impact of deer on forest lands.
“There’s a segment of the population who has grown up being so successful in hunting and has seen on the Outdoor Channel that every hunter gets a big buck,” Linderud said.
There is nothing wrong with killing an antlerless deer and giving it to a needy family, a food pantry or to someone who enjoys venison, but does not hunt.
Jerry Davis can be reached at (608) 924-1112 or at [email protected]
