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
What Is Killing Newborn Fawns In Farm Country? By Patrick DurkinTwo surprises emerged during Wisconsin’s research into deer predation and fawn survival the past three springs: Wolves were not linked to any fawn deaths in the Northern Forest study area nea
By Patrick DurkinWhen Wisconsin’s 3½-month archery deer season opens Sept. 13, it will mark the final year that hunters statewide must show up in person to register deer they kill. To preview what Wisconsin’s new deer-registration process might look in 20
For 12 years Wisconsin has watched and listened as a group of deer hunting faith-healers in its southwestern corner criticized and blocked scientific efforts to manage chronic wasting disease.Meanwhile, they’ve offered no alternatives, even as CWD increas
Wisconsin continues its wolf debates By Patrick DurkinMany folks were talking about wolves and wolf numbers in late May after Wisconsin’s “wolf advisory committee” recommended a 156-wolf kill for the 2014 season, about 100 fewer than the state’s actual ki
Joe Shead of Superior, Wisconsin, thinks he was born to hunt shed antlers, even if he didn’t discover this winter-spring hobby until he was in college. In the 15 years since that discovery, Shead’s love for shed-hunting made him one of the hobby’s best-kn
If anyone wanted to see a dead idea in search of a grave, all they had to do was read Question 35 at Wisconsin’s statewide fish and wildlife hearings in April. It asked if white or albino deer should be legal quarry for Wisconsin hunters. Currently, albin
A University of Wisconsin study on chronic wasting disease recommends focusing more hunting pressure on the deer most likely to carry and spread CWD in whitetails: adult bucks. The peer-reviewed study, released March 21 and published online in PLOS ONE, w
Although wolf and coyote attacks on people remain rarer than death by lightning bolt, one wonders why wildlife agencies typically dismiss the incidents as freak occurrences or simple cases of mistaken identity. You might recall two coyotes killed folk-sin
Wildlife Expert Rips Fed’s New CWD Policy By Patrick DurkinATHENS, Ga. – The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s new CWD certification program for captive elk and deer herds could hasten the disease’s spread, whether the animals are privately owned “livestoc
