By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — The Dunn County Deer Advisory Council is recommending road boundaries for the Chronic Wasting Disease surveillance area that includes county Highway K to the west, rather than state Highway 25 and Highway 79.
The Dunn County C-DAC was originally scheduled to meet April 7 at the Dunn County Fish & Game Association on Pine Avenue in Menomonie but changed the meeting to a conference call format because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since the meeting was held by conference call, the Dunn County C-DAC was unable to take public comments, but the public is invited to submit comments online about the Dunn County C-DAC’s preliminary recommendations at the Department of Natural Resources Deer Advisory Council website during the comment period the last two weeks of April.
CWD is a prion (protein particle) disease that impacts the nervous system of deer, elk, moose and reindeer in Norway.
A Whitetail deer killed in October of 2019 during bow season near 3M in Menomonie is Dunn County’s first CWD positive deer.
CWD is a 100 percent fatal disease, and the animal will often show signs of the disease in a year or a year and a half after exposure. The deer can look healthy up until a few months before it dies of the disease, and the symptoms can include looking emaciated, showing no fear of people and drooling.
In addition to making recommendations for the 2020 deer hunting season, such as including two bonus tags with a deer hunting license and setting the number of bonus tags available for purchase, the purpose of the meeting also included making recommendations on the CWD surveillance area and the CWD surveillance landowner permit area.
Surveillance area
Road boundaries are better for the surveillance area than setting a 10-mile circle, said Al Marotz, chair of the Dunn County C-DAC.
Hunters will have more of an idea of where they are with road boundaries than they would with a circle drawn on a map, he said.
At a meeting held February 12 at the Dunn County Judicial Center, the Dunn County C-DAC also had discussed the CWD surveillance area and surveillance landowner permit area.
The sample goal for the surveillance area will be the testing of 296 deer for CWD. A surveillance area can be determined either by a 10-mile circle around where the deer was found or by other boundaries, such as roads and rivers, said Missy Sparrow-Lien, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Natural Resources, at the February meeting.
The boundaries of the proposed surveillance area are county Highway C south of Menomonie, the Dunn/Chippewa county line and Dunn/Eau Claire county line to the east, state Highway 170 to the north, and county Highway K to the west.
At the February meeting, C-DAC members had discussed setting the western boundary at state Highway 25 and Highway 79.
Setting the western boundary at Highway K means more area for surveillance to detect additional cases of CWD, said Mike Gullickson, C-DAC member.
The bigger the area, the more information that can be gathered, and setting road boundaries would include road kills, Marotz said.
The DNR is not currently testing anything because of COVID-19, but road kills will be checked in the surveillance area, Sparrow-Lien said.
All of the road kills in Dunn County cannot be checked, but the efforts can be focused on the surveillance area, she said.
C-DAC members agreed Highway K should be the western boundary rather than Highways 25 and 79.
In addition to Gullickson and Marotz, members of the Dunn County Deer Advisory Council include Paul Sterk, Dan Loonstra, Jim Thompson, Mike Benzel and Bob Bernier.
Permit area
Landowner permits for additional deer kills in a two-mile circle around where the CWD positive deer was killed also are part of the CWD surveillance efforts.
The surveillance permit area can be a two-mile circle drawn around where the CWD deer was killed or road boundaries can be used, Sparrow-Lien said.
In the surveillance permit area, landowners receive either five or seven free permits that can be used by the landowner or the landowner’s designee to shoot deer, she said.
All deer that are killed in the surveillance permit area must be tested for CWD, Sparrow-Lien said.
Committee members agreed that the two-mile circle should be expanded to include an area northwest of Cardinal Glass.
Timeframe
In addition to making a recommendation on the boundary of the surveillance permit area, C-DAC members also discussed the timeframe for the surveillance permits.
The maximum time allowed for when the surveillance permits can be used is from September 1 to April 30, Sparrow-Lien said.
Landowners and snowmobile clubs do not want the surveillance permit timeframe to be set that long, Bernier said, noting that farmers also often are able to start their field work in April.
Allowing the permits to be used all the way from September to April will have an impact on the use of snowmobile trails as well, he said.
The deer are already “chased” from September, when bow season opens, to January, when bow season closes, Marotz said.
If the winter is bad, with deep snow, the deer herd would have just that much more pressure in the surveillance permit area from increased hunting, he said.
One suggestion from C-DAC members for the surveillance permit area was to set the timeframe to match the opening and closing of bow season.
September to April allows a few more opportunities for samples outside of the regular season, Sparrow-Lien said.
Bernier noted that the success of the surveillance permit areas would hinge on cooperation from the landowners.
Participation is voluntary. Landowners are not required to participate, Sparrow-Lien said.
Within the established timeframe, such as September to April, landowners can still set their own timeframe of when either they or their designees can shoot deer, she said.
Working with the landowners will make increased use of the permits more likely, Bernier said.
The DNR does not require landowners to get the permits that are available for their property in the two-mile radius surveillance area. If they want to participate in the surveillance efforts, the landowners must come to the DNR for the permits Sparrow-Lien said.
The surveillance permit area is about CWD and not hunting and gives more opportunities for samples, she said.
Comments
Public comments about the 10-mile surveillance area and two-mile surveillance permit area will be accepted by the DNR from April 16 to April 28.
Public comments can be submitted through the DNR’s Deer Advisory Council website at www.dnr.wi.gov/topic/hunt/cdac.html.
You can also find the website by doing a search online for “Wisconsin” “DNR” and “cdac.”
The Dunn County C-DAC’s preliminary recommendations will be finalized at a meeting scheduled for May 5 at Dunn County Fish & Game.
Meeting information is available on the C-DAC website, and if the May 5 meeting also ends up being held as a conference call, the telephone number and the access code can be found on the website.
The Dunn County Deer Advisory Council’s preliminary recommendations also will be posted on the C-DAC website.
The recommendations will be taken under consideration by the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board June 23 and June 24.
