The nine-day gun deer season saw a 16 percent drop in harvest numbers statewide compared to the year before and was about 10 percent below the 5-year average.
Those numbers were even worse in the Northern Forest Zone.
Hunters harvested a little more than 28,000 deer from the 20 counties that make up the Northern Forest Zone. That’s over 10,000 fewer deer harvested from the same zone during the nine-day gun deer season the year before.
In response to the poor harvest numbers, state lawmakers from the northern region are hosting a public discussion this week on the hunt “including, but not limited to, the gray wolf impact on our deer population.”
DNR Deer Program Specialist Jeff Pritzl talked about the factors that can impact a hunt in the days leading up to the hunt, as well as during and after.
Those factors included the harsh winter last year, lack of snow on the ground for this year’s hunt, and reports of deer not moving as much.
“Specifically, our buck harvest is down 14.7% from last year. But remember, last year, the buck harvest was up exactly 14.7%. That's just part of that ebb and flow that we have, which is part of hunting,” said Pritzl during a media briefing following the 9-day gun deer season talking about the statewide numbers.
This was his response when asked by a reporter the relationship between deer and predators and the potential effect on this year’s harvest.
“Research does suggest that during more severe winters, like we had last year, that does tip the scale in the favor of large carnivores like wolves. But then, in the mild years, it goes the other way,” said Prtizl. “It's hard to just say, ‘this is a standard influence on an annual basis.’ It's just, again, one of those things that influences the ebb and flow of hunting from year to year.”
Tim Van Deelen is a professor of forest and wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
He’s been studying deer off and on since 1992 and, by his estimate, has had 100-plus publications on wildlife ecology, most of which are about deer or deer and wolves.
'Deer Specialists'
Van Deelen calls Wisconsin’s current deer population “very robust.”
“You have to qualify that a little bit because we've got growing chronic wasting disease prevalence in southwestern Wisconsin, which is very concerning. The DNR estimates that there's somewhere, prior to hunting season, 1.5 to 1.8 million deer. That would be a relatively high number of deer for our landscape, all things considered,” said Van Deelen.
He says the state also has a healthy wolf population. It’s currently estimated to be between 1,000 and 1,500 wolves and has been in that neighborhood for the last seven years.
Van Deelen does think they’re in a good position to be federally de-listed.
“The growth rate of the wolf population is starting to slow down, indicating that it's bumping up against some sort of carrying capacity in Wisconsin,” he said. “It's a healthy wolf population. It's not in imminent danger of extinction.”
Van Deelen calls wolves “deer specialists.”
The predators have developed a hunting method where they choose their pray and then pursue it until the pray gets exhausted or gets tripped up somehow.
“It's pretty remarkable that when you encounter a wolf-killed deer, quite often, there's evidence that the deer has been tripped up either by running into thick vegetation or slipping on the ice or something like that. The evolution of both species has been shaped by this relationship between them,” said Van Deelen.
Population drivers
After this year’s poor harvest numbers, some hunters questioned if wolves were, at least partially, to blame.
"After a disappointing gun deer hunting season, we received outreach from constituents who expressed their concern with the state of our deer ecosystem. Harvest numbers saw a significant decline of nearly 20% this year," said Rep. Swearingen in a statement announcing a public discussion on the issue later this week. "This public discussion is vital for us to address these concerns and explore ways to ensure a sustainable and thriving deer population."
Van Deelen doesn’t see wolves as being the driving issue at this point.
“Our wolf population has been pretty close to the same number here for the past seven years,” said Van Deelen. “We had essentially the same number of wolves last year as we do this year, but we see the effect this year and not last year. We also know that our deer harvest is vulnerable to a lot of different drivers.”
"Winter weather is the wildcard"
Van Deelen pointed to declining license sales over the years and reports of lack of deer movement in the north this year as possible reasons why this year's harvest numbers are down.
He also says the numbers don’t add when you talk about wolves making a large impact on deer herds.
“I mean, to be fair, our biggest reduction in the harvest happened in the north. And the north, of course, is where we have our wolves, but right now that looks more like an association rather than a cause and effect,” said Van Deelen. “We also know, in really crude terms, there's probably 1,000 deer out there for every wolf on the landscape in Wisconsin, maybe less in Wolf range, but the point would be then you'd have to have a lot of wolves killing a lot more deer, I think, to have a population effect. Deer are kind of really, really robust to different sources of mortality.”
Van Deelen doesn’t see predation as being a real driver of population dynamics in whitetail deer.
He says winter is the biggest wildcard when it comes to deer death rates in the north.
“If you have a very severe winter, then that enhances all of the different mortality sources. If you have a relatively mild winter, then the deer come out of it in better shape. They're better able to resist predation. You don't get the starvation mortality. Winter weather is the wildcard,” said Van Deelen.
While not nearly prevalent in the north as it is in southern Wisconsin, Van Deelen says chronic wasting disease is the bigger threat to the deer herd.
“We have a healthy deer population, apart from CWD,” said Van Deelen.
Sen. Mary Felzkowksi, Rep. Rob Swearingen, and Rep. Calvin Callahan are holding a public discussion on the 2023 Gun Deer Season this Thursday, December 21.
It’s from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the Woodruff Town Hall, 1418 1st Ave, Woodruff, WI 54568.
The press release said all community members, hunters, and concerned citizens are encouraged to attend this informative event. The discussion will include an open forum for attendees to share their thoughts and engage in a constructive conversation.
