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http://www.fox11online.com/dpp/news/hun ... -deer-hunt
MADISON, Wis. (AP) - State conservation officials should re-evaluate their deer population formulas and stop encouraging hunters to kill antlerless deer, hunters and lawmakers said during a hearing Thursday.
The hunters and lawmakers pounded away at the Department of Natural Resources for hours, blaming the agency's herd control measures for a weak November gun hunt. The agency's overzealous strategies have led to so many dead deer they have put Wisconsin's $1 billion-a-year deer hunting heritage is in jeopardy, they said.
"We run the risk of ruining this state's great deer hunting tradition for our sons and daughters," said Tom Klieman, a Kewaunee hunter and member of Northeastern Wisconsin Concerned Deer Hunters.
DNR Secretary Matt Frank told lawmakers the agency knows hunters are frustrated. The agency suspended its contentious earn-a-buck strategies going into the 2009 hunts and has proposed raising the population goals in more than a dozen hunting zones in 2010.
"I know there is frustration out there," he said.
Deer hunters have seethed about the DNR's regulations for decades. But that anger exploded in November after hunters killed only about 195,000 deer, down 29 percent from 2008.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) - State conservation officials should re-evaluate their deer population formulas and stop encouraging hunters to kill antlerless deer, hunters and lawmakers said during a hearing Thursday.
The hunters and lawmakers pounded away at the Department of Natural Resources for hours, blaming the agency's herd control measures for a weak November gun hunt. The agency's overzealous strategies have led to so many dead deer they have put Wisconsin's $1 billion-a-year deer hunting heritage is in jeopardy, they said.
"We run the risk of ruining this state's great deer hunting tradition for our sons and daughters," said Tom Klieman, a Kewaunee hunter and member of Northeastern Wisconsin Concerned Deer Hunters.
DNR Secretary Matt Frank told lawmakers the agency knows hunters are frustrated. The agency suspended its contentious earn-a-buck strategies going into the 2009 hunts and has proposed raising the population goals in more than a dozen hunting zones in 2010.
"I know there is frustration out there," he said.
Deer hunters have seethed about the DNR's regulations for decades. But that anger exploded in November after hunters killed only about 195,000 deer, down 29 percent from 2008.
