Each September as Wisconsin’s bowhunting season nears, I reminisce how I once counted down the hours and crossed off the days on the 1971 calendar, wondering why my first archery-season opener was taking so long to arrive. I couldn’t wait to tie my 43-pound Bear Grizzly re-curve bow to my bicycle’s crossbar, wedge my back […]
Wisconsin’s first crossbow season for white-tailed deer helped generate a record archery buck kill of 46,201 and a record 275,417 licensed bow hunters in 2014.
Are hunters supposed to believe that woods and forests are now safer from CWD because several states have banned hunters from using urine-based scents?
Roughly 50 full-time Wisconsin DNR jobs in wildlife, fisheries, science services and law enforcement will be eliminated in the state-budget draft for 2016-17, and yet a key lawmaker behind the cuts claims they’ll benefit the state’s hunters and anglers. Sen. Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst, said he supports axing nearly 20 research jobs in the Department of […]
How much longer will states live in such fear of the emerald ash borer that we waste our ash trees in yet another futile effort to stop forest destruction?
CWD is a serious threat to the future of deer hunting that is often misunderstood. Here are 10 facts every deer hunter should know.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and wildlife agencies nationwide have spent recent years trying to recruit, retain and re-engage hunters and anglers in a society increasingly disconnected from nature.As Richard Louv noted in his 2005 book “L
One wonders why lawmakers like Wisconsin State Rep. John Nygren think the state owes every road-killed deer a solemn procession to the nearest landfill and a decent Christian burial. Nygren didn’t like Wisconsin Gov. Walker’s idea to delete $700,000 from the Department of Natural Resources’ budget to remove dead deer from state roads and highways.
While banging on our dining room window to chase a squirrel off a bird-feeder, I reminded myself that I’m actually a generous conservation supporter. I told myself that again toward dusk the next day while trotting outside to chase away three white-tailed
Despite sampling the second-lowest number of deer in Wisconsin’s 14-year CWD-testing program in 2014, its Department of Natural documented a record 6.1 percent disease rate as 329 of 5,414 tested whitetails carried the fatal brain disease this past year.
By now we expect some absurdity and fantasy in our wolf-management programs, but December’s federal court ruling that returned Great Lakes wolves to the Endangered Species List is likely the silliest decision yet.
If we could compile a list of hunters who have died while hauling deer from the woods in recent seasons, I’m sure it would exceed those who died from gunshots or tree-stand tumbles.
The truck’s clock read 1:10 p.m. on a recent Monday as I pulled onto the highway’s shoulder and cranked out a Y-turn to watch a buck courting a doe 60 yards away in a cut cornfield in northeastern Wisconsin.
License sales for Wisconsin’s archery deer season are inching toward the record 266,573 sold in 2013, thanks to the state’s new crossbow license that took effect this year.
Even though our group remains wary of danger when hunting the Rockies’ treacherous terrain, we spend far more effort searching for elk, and trying to identify birds, mammals and other critters foreign to our Wisconsin experiences.
SODA SPRINGS, Idaho – He wasn’t the biggest bull elk on the mountain, nor the wisest or baddest of his species. But he became mine to take home when our paths crossed on an Idaho mountaintop in early September.
When you step onto the porch and admire woodcarvings of an elk and bald eagle in the entry doors of the wood-sided home, you smile and think, “This looks like a home where Gordon Bentley would live.”
EAGLE RIVER, Wis. – Friends and foes of wolf hunting disagreed politely yet passionately during a six-person panel discussion at the recent Wisconsin Outdoor Communicators Association annual conference at the Trees for Tomorrow education center. Even s
Big Game Summaries Catalog Wisconsin’s Successes By Patrick DurkinWhen the 2013 Wisconsin Big Game Harvest Summary arrived in July, I inspected the bookshelves behind my office chair and pushed the 90-page booklet alongside its 24 plain-Jane paperback pre
By Patrick DurkinHunters and other nature-watchers have been filling scrapbooks and computer folders with trail-camera photos of deer, bears and other wildlife for 20 years, and now the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is channeling that enthusia
