Well, meeting number 3 of the CWD Advisory group is behind us. We heard from Jordan Petchenick, the resource biologist for the DNR. His presentation was called "What do Wisconsinites think?" I've already read a lot of Jordan's work and was impressed with the info he has gathered in the last few years. What it boils down to is that what hunters say they will do and what they actually do are two different things. and that there is a real disconnect between hunters attitudes and DNR goals on how to manage not only the disease but also the deer herd. The agency realizes (correctly so) that despite their best ideas and efforts that without support of hunters and landowners, they are powerless.
They admit that hunters have told the DNR that they have little or no fear over CWD effecting their personal health. Surveys have shown that if CWD was proven to be a serious health issue to people or cattle that hunters would feel an obligation to reduce the deer herd to very low levels. Since personal health is a very low incentive to shoot more deer, the monetary incentives were added. I found the incentive program to be one of the most interesting tactics that the DNR has tried in an effort to get hunters to shoot more deer. They learned that paying hunters to shoot deer in an effort to reduce CWD does not work because hunters don't think is a problem that warrants the shooting of more deer to begin with. I think he learned that hunters do not hunt for reasons as simple as cash.
Jordan did not mention this but I suspect one of the reasons the cash incentive program failed was due to the way it was structured. In this case, the odds worked against them. Hunters were paid anywhere from $200 to $400 for every deer that tested positive for CWD.Everyone that submitted a deer was entered into a $20 drawing. Since the odds were so low that a hunter would actually shoot an infected deer, many hunters were paid nothing and the same was true of the random $20 drawing. This was complicated by the suspicion that even if a hunter shot a positive deer that the DNR would tell the hunter that it tested negative in an effort to save money. I don't suggest that was the case but such a rumor would spread fast and kill the program. Jordan thinks that managing the people is far more important than trying to manage the disease. If hunters can be convinced that there is a real need to seriously reduce the herd, that they would and could do just that and everything else will fall into place without agency intervention. It's all about incentives to harvest more deer than one can use. At this point, The DNR has not found any that have worked.
The next speaker was Bryan Richards. Bryan is the CWD project leader, USGS National Wildlife Health Center. His presentation is called: "What are other states learning about CWD". We learned that 14 states and a few Canadian Provinces now have CWD but failed to tell us if it was because the disease is spreading or if they have it only because they are now looking for it. When asked about WI, Bryan agrees that CWD has most likely been in WI for "Decades" I found his presentation and tone to be a bit adversarial and and he seemed to have a real dislike for deer farmers. He made a lot of correlations that were questioned by our panel. He did admit that a state that did not allow deer farming, also had CWD and that even though WI has several hundred deer/elk farms that the vast majority of the farms do not have CWD. In talking with the representative of the captive cervid industry that sits on our board, I was told that the majority of those farms are North of Hwy 29 and have not instances of CWD. His talk turned to Colorado and the steps that state has taken in it's 40 year battle with CWD. In the end, Bryan told us that just because Colorado stopped culling that WI should not follow that tactic. I found his talk to be biased in opinion more so than rooted in facts and science.
The third speaker was supposed to be the DNR's Senior Vet., Julie Landenberg but she fell ill and was not in attendance. After lunch we were introduced to Matt Frank who is the newly appointed DNR Secretary. We were given the chance to ask questions and he spent about a half hour fielding questions. That is another topic altogether. With the speakers and presentations complete, we discussed the need to see or hear any other information or data, prior to beginning our task of making recommendations. A few members brought up that we should have a presentation by Nancy Matthews to learn about her telemetry studies and what she learned over the years about deer travel patterns and ranges. Group member Tom Givnish will give a 20 minute talk about how the UK government ended a foot and mouth outbreak by using an extreme eradication program. It was also discussed that we should hear from Dr. James Kroll. Dr. Kroll is a well known whitetail management expert and we agreed to begin by watching a video from Dr. Kroll and then if needed, we would ask him to address the group. The remainder of our day was spent detailing the process and procedures involved with making our recommendations. I grew tired of a talk about how we plan to go about making recommendations and asked that we get to the meat and potatoes. and start brainstorming ideas. We meet again on the 20th of October.
