NORTHWOODS – This hunting season, the Department of Natural Resources put some extra effort into stopping the spread of chronic wasting disease. They tried to pass a regulation on Monday that will make it so hunters cannot remove deer carcasses from CWD affected counties. The Legislative Joint Committee on Rules and Regulations revoked that regulation this week.
The regulation prohibiting hunters from moving deer carcasses out of CWD-affected counties was supposed to take effect on Monday.
Those who voted to repeal the regulation say they did so because they felt there wasn’t enough time and notice to the deer hunters of Wisconsin. Four committee members voted to keep the regulation, six voted to repeal it.“I was very glad to hear that the court system vetoed it,” said Jay Schaefer who owns a small butcher shop in Crandon.
Jay Schaefer owns a small butcher shop in Crandon. He and his team process around 500 deer every hunting season. This regulation might have meant some lost customers for him.
“People buy tracts of land in different counties and set up their deer camps and cabins there so there is much travel involved,” Schaefer said.
This would also mean less choice for hunters. According to Dan Grunst, who owns an archery store in Rhinelander, this idea wasn’t popular with the people who came into his shop either.
“If they harvest a deer they want to be able to take it to their processor back home,” Grunst said.
Deer Transport Regulation Repealed
I question how much of a positive impact this regulation would have had on stemming the tide of CWD, but I am certain that it would have butchered the income of SE Wisconsin processors. A lot of folks from the urban areas go up north to hunt, but bring their deer home for processing. This saves another trip way up north to collect the butchered deer later in the winter.
This won’t affect the hunters who shoot their deer in a city park and can just wheel the carcass in a shopping cart to their processor.
First: Brewers win in the 10th on a single by Moose !!
Second: WI has done virtually nothing to stem the tide of CWD in the state since 2011. And wasted $125+K on the “Deer Czar” con man from TX.In the last 3 years CWD deer have been found in the county I live in, hunt in, and all the adjacent counties. Source in every case are captive deer farms. And yet the state refuses to double fence. Deer farm owners introduced CWD to the state, and now are calling the shots on regulation. Not a smart way to manage one of the biggest seasonal income sources for rural WI.