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Eisele: Proposed deer feeding, baiting ban among questions at Spring Hearings

Tim Eisele
Special to The Capital Times  —  4/09/2008 8:21 am

The annual Spring Conservation Hearings have had their share of controversial questions, from trying to rid the environment of feral cats to opening a hunting season on mourning doves.

This year's questions could generate some of the same intense interest with questions about baiting and feeding of deer and requiring some private lands to be open to the public in exchange for a savings on taxes.

The annual Spring Hearings take place Monday, April 14, and will be held in every county of the state. The Dane County meeting will be held at the Alliant Energy Center's Exhibition Hall in Madison.

Ban deer feeding and baiting?

The Conservation Congress will ask the public's opinion on a proposed statewide deer feeding and baiting ban.

Feeding and baiting deer in Wisconsin have been controversial for decades. However, biologists working in Midwest states have identified baiting and feeding deer as problematic threats to deer hunting since the early 1990s.

"The science is clear on this issue: baiting and feeding deer leads to increased risks of disease transmission, adds unnecessary amounts of energy to the landscape which supports artificially high deer populations, and complicates effective deer population management," the Congress explains.

The use of bait and feed grew and spread throughout the state, but with the discovery of chronic wasting disease in 2002, the Natural Resources Board banned all deer feeding and baiting statewide. However, the State Legislature over-rode the ban in 2003 by passing a law that allowed baiting and feeding.

The ban remains in place for counties where CWD or bovine tuberculosis have been confirmed and in adjacent counties to where CWD positive deer have been confirmed.

Currently deer baiting and feeding is prohibited in 26 counties, including Dane County. But in other counties up to two gallons may be placed out per 40 acres.

However, illegal baiting has topped the list of violations during the nine-day gun deer season for the past four years.

For information about baiting and feeding, check the Wisconsin Deer Hunters Association Web site at www.wideerhunters.org. It explores concerns from ethics, disease, hunter conflicts, public opinion, habitat damage and privatization issues.

Requiring MFL land to be open

The Congress Private and Public Land Use Study Committee is asking a question about not allowing future Managed Forest Law (MFL) lands to be closed to public access.

MFL is a program where landowners sign up to participate for either 25 or 50 years. To participate in the program, landowners must manage their land in accordance with a written management plan. In exchange they pay lower property taxes for the time that timber is growing. When the trees mature and need to be cut, landowners pay a yield tax to partially make up for reduction in property taxes.

Currently, MFL landowners have the choice of opening their land for the public to hunt, fish, cross-country ski, sight-see and hike, and in exchange pay lower yearly property taxes. Or, they can close their land to the public and pay higher yearly taxes.

The Congress is concerned about shrinking acreages of land available for hunting, and asks whether the public supports legislation that would require all future MFL contracts to allow public access.

The major benefit if it should go through is that future MFL lands would provide more places for hunting, skiing, hiking and fishing.

The major drawback is that most landowners want to have control over who is on their land. Most private lands are hunted, usually by the landowner, family members, relatives and friends, so the lands are hunted and open to people the landowner knows.

If landowners realize they can't limit the number of people on their property and decide it is not worth it for the reduction in taxes, they could withdraw from the program.

DNR Chief State Forester Paul DeLong has said that would be a major drawback because private lands may not be managed, and that management provides wood for the timber industry, provides improved habitat for wildlife management, and healthy trees help to provide clean air and water and carbon sequestration.

There is more than meets the eye with this question. Less incentive for private forest management could well lead to more buildings and loss of forest lands.

Tim Eisele is a full-time freelance outdoor writer and photographer; E-mail: teisele@chorus.net

Tim Eisele
Special to The Capital Times  —  4/09/2008 8:21 am