Hunters’ choice: public or private?

Madison — While there are a number of unknowns about just how the DNR is going to implement changes from the Deer Trustee Report, one part of the plan is clear: Hunters are going to have to commit to hunting antlerless deer on either private land or public land, and in a specific county, or be willing to pay $12 per tag (residents) for added flexibility.

In the past, hunters could use free herd-control tags to move from one herd-control unit to another if they had several hunting areas available to them in those units.

No longer.

Mobile hunters will either have to settle on one or two counties, or be willing to buy multiple $12 tags for private land and public land in each county they hunt.

Those public land/private land tags will be in play this fall and will be available for purchase beginning sometime in August, said Tom Hauge, DNR wildlife management program director.

“When those tags go on sale in August, hunters that are buying antlerless tags will have to know which unit – that will be by county – they will be hunting in, and then if they will be hunting public or private land,” Hauge said.

Hauge cleared up one early question that has been coming up for some hunters – the definition of Managed Forest Land as public or private. MFL land is privately owned, but in many cases the land is available for public access, including hunting.

MFL has basically two types of programs: MFL “open,” which offers the lowest real estate tax rate in exchange for allowing public access, or MFL “closed,” where landowners pay a higher tax rate, but can close the land to public access.

“Any situation where there is private land that is in a program that allows public access, you need a public-land tag,” Hauge said.

That includes Voluntary Public Access lands in southern Wisconsin. VPA lands are leased for public use from private landowners, but through a program other than MFL.

“VPA lands – those are going to need public tags even though it’s private land,” Hauge said.

New antlerless tag system

“Herd-control tags are gone. This fall, hunters who buy an archery, crossbow, or gun license will be eligible for a free antlerless tag in one of the two farmland zones (two tags total – one for gun, and one for either crossbow use or bow use),” Hauge said.

“New hunting licenses are already on sale, but programming changes were not able to be accomplished for this year,” he said. “The farmland zone tag is going to be a zone-wide tag this year that can be used in the Central Farmland Zone or the Southern Farmland Zone. You will get one automatically when you buy a license. If there turns out to be an antlerless quota above that, they will go on sale in August.

“Beginning in 2015 when buying a license, you will be asked to specify which county you intend to use it in, but not this year. It’s authorization beginning in 2015 would be specific to that county, but not in 2014.

The tags will be more limiting in the future. You will still have to specify public or private land this year for the farmland zones, but not the county,” Hauge said.

He said the idea to designate antlerless tags for use on private or public land originated amid concerns of possible overharvest of antlerless deer on public lands at times when the agency was trying to bring deer herds down to goal.

“This is basically a ‘test drive’ this year. The 2014 rule order approved by the Natural Resources Board is an emergency rule order,” Hauge said. “Later this year, or in early 2015, we have to come back (to the board) for the permanent rule. Maybe there are some kinks people want to change – maybe we find out there is less concern with overharvest of antlerless deer on private lands and maybe we could have more flexibility on where those private-land tags could be used, or maybe we offer same flexibility to public-land hunters, I don’t know.

“I don’t know what percentage of hunters we have who are in that category (of being mobile hunters) but those are the trade-offs,” he said. “The flip side is that we have folks who are more sedentary. They don’t move around so much. They are very focused on their local deer herd.

“We heard through the Deer Trustee Report that free or $2 tags were devaluing the antlerless deer resource. The $12 tag is justified from that perspective,” Hauge said.

There are eight or nine counties where there are two management zones within the county – the Northern Forest and Central Farmland Zones, or Central Forest and Central Farmland zones. In those cases, hunters could potentially need four different antlerless tags – at a cost of $48 – to hunt antlerless deer in different parts of the same county on public or private land in either of the two zones.

“We tried hard to see if we could figure that out, but the habitats are so different. If put it in one or the other (Northern Forest in Central Farmland, for instance), it would have created serious management problems,” Hauge said.

“For 2015 and beyond, we will see whether that’s one of those tweaks. It seems like something to look at. Another thing I think is true, in the northern part of Oconto County (one of the eight or nine counties with four antlerless tag scenarios), that’s probably also where the bulk of the public land is. We need to be open to taking a look at what we learn from this year,” he said.

CWD management will now be funded, in part, by the $12 antlerless tags sold in CWD counties. Hauge said half of that $12 for each tag sold in a CWD county will now go into a pot of money to offset spending for CWD surveillance work that has been subsidized by other parts of the wildlife program.