Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Texan hired to study Wisconsin deer management practices

The impact of bear and wolves on deer should be a learning experience for Dr. Kroll as he most likely never had to insert this predator factor into his studies and management philosphy.

I'm willing to bet he has. Though, probably with coyotes, which I left off my list by mistake.

Where I lived in central WI, there were plenty of coyotes.

Yes, that's pretty much the crux of many of the issues.
That, and less politics with more management.

In addition, having "town hall" meetings where the WDNR is there to bless us with their intelligence and choose NOT to let anyone speak on the sportsman behalf is a traveshamockery. I understand that it gets to be an emotional hotbed but the censorship of sportsman at those hearings has only fed the fire.

In addition, in what might be the most idiotic thing ever uttered by a wildlife manager, Keith Warnke, when asked on why the deer harvest numbers were so low over the course of the first three days of the season, (under perfect hunting conditions) and I'm paraphrasing here; "the deer are there, hunters aren't hunting hard enough"...

Look, the tradition of deer hunting is surpassed by perhaps only the Packers and, beer. And, as sportsman, we have to be willing to do our part and be open to change. I don't think we've been an eager and willing participant as it pertains to change. So, there is guilt on the side of sportsman as well.

If the WDNR wants to fix this thing, it needs an outside resource - one that is respected in the world of whitetails.
Walker understand that there simply is no way the people of WI will buy anything the WDNR is selling without it. DJK is a step in the right direction in that regard. And, as sportsman, we have to be willing to live what comes of this matter.

Then, the WDNR needs to work WITH sportman (and woman) so we can make this place a great whitetail state once again.

Lastly, the WDNR needs a front-person that can display some respect and humility.

To this point, the WDNR has gotten exactly what they deserve from sportsman - bitterness and contempt.

I've just now sifted through the entire thread.
Three things that I've come to count on in life;

1) Death
2) Taxes

and

3) Edited by jim62

Well said.

Haha!

Even tho he's known as Dr. Deer (he even has on it his license plate lol) he has done a lot of research on other game species and lots of non game species as well. When I left school he was doing research in the state of Michigan. I don't think he will be totally in the dark when it comes to those pressures as well as a variety of others.

I think people have the wrong idea of what he may or may not do. I don't think he will come in and do X Y Z. I think he'll come in and recommend a system to get the data on record thru various methods and then how you can go from there. Even in liberal game law Texas they don't roll out massive changes state or region wide. When we did our last big change on the number of bucks you could harvest and the restrictions that went with them that came from 15 years of experiments on private land volunteers and then it went into effect in a couple of counties then was rolled out region wide in stages.

I'm not sure how it works there but in TX and pretty much all across the southeast if you have property/lease you can enroll in certain state programs that will allow you more flexibility in harvest limits and season dates but you have to keep very good records and the biologist will review those yearly with you, come out and make browse surveys, spotlight surveys etc...

There's no place in TX where if you own land you can't request a biologist and/or techs to come out and at least look at the property and do a browse survery and/or a spotlight survey or whatever else.

If anyone wants any in depth info on his methods order that first book I linked a few pages back from the SFA College of Forestry. It's a nice book to have as well to refer back on with lots of case studies as well as data collection methods.

I don't know what the situation is here but I've told hunters that in a more nicely worded way and I've heard Dr. Kroll say it over and over to certain groups of hunters and landowners.

One of Dr. Krolls biggest catch phrases is any idiot can grow big deer. Growing big deer and having people kill them is where the work is. In a lot of ways he's right. The bulk of a biologist time will be spent on managing people via various methods instead of managing wildlife.

If you go out and count the deer say in a very intensive camera study over a short period of say 3 days. By intensive I mean a camera for every 3-4 acres you can get 90% or more of the deer in the first 3 days over a small bait station. Then you turn around and listen to the hunters who say they have a deer for every 50 acres and there are no bucks over a 1.5 years of age....then you look at the pics and the results don't lik and they have a deer for every 10 acres and you show them lots of deer over 2.5.

I'm not saying that is the case there. In TX in places we have had to move the season dates around, put peer pressure on certain groups of hunters, increase tags so that those succesful hunters can harvest more deer per individual and all sorts of stuff.

The single biggest hurdle here is getting hunters to kill enough deer, period. Season runs for between 4 and 5 months and if you have a management plan you can realistically have unlimited tags available and still can't get enough deer killed. It's very frustrating as a manager. I'm sure that won't be the case there just giving you an idea it's not so easy on the other side of the table.

The last thing I'll say is if people are expecting someone to come and be smooth and push buttons and be political about it...forget it. He's brash, in your face and has limited people skills and is someone who manages to rub people the wrong way - even people who agree with him. But he normally is on the ball facts wise and results wise.

The one question I have is, is the DNR there routinely hiring people from out of state/region? I can see where a department could get locked down into certain modes of thinking if they aren't getting new blood from other schools and areas regularly. Even if they are not they should be attending region wide symposiums and seeing what works and what doesn't work with hunter outreach programs, experimental season programs etc... One of the biggest things TX put into effect in the last 15 years was picked up at a Southeastern meeting of wildlife managers that came out of Georgia.

In WI the last major change to the season was CWD/antlerless related and they dove in with both feet and a concrete belt. It happened waaaaay to fast, imo. There wasn't input form the landowners, or it certainly didn't seem to be. It was "we need to shoot every deer with X miles of where it's been found."

Which also led to MUCH more liberal antlerless harvests, including the northern part of the state where they weren't needed.

tzone, if it hadn't happened fast - it never could have had a chance of working. Applaud them for making a serious go of it rather than succumbing to political appeasement that was absolutely certain to fail. You may not like them, but they have balls.

It didn't work. It was a flop. It was politicalappeasement at it's best.

CWD was there for a long time. It didn't just show up. and it isn't going anywhere.

They screwed up, then tried to lay the blame on the outdoorsmen of WI. Balls, yeah...they have balls alright.

Nathan,

I have no doubt that the reasons you stated are frustrating.
Yours can oftentimes be a thankless occupation. This whole thing is about moving people and in order to do so, they need to be educated. It's been like trying to move a stinkin' aircraft carrier here and all we've gotten from the WDNR is a bunch of non-people peeps looking down their noses and doling out mandates.

The WDNR has done nothing. Nada, zilcho, the-big-goose-egg (you see me working ) in getting the sportsman and woman of WI to understand processes and visions involved in their management. Heck, if you're talking deer hunting to WI-ites, you can sell ketchup popsicles to men in white gloves if they believe in what you're selling.

The reality exists that they do indeed know quite a bit about what they're doing. But it doesn't matter the profession, be it doctor, lawyer, president of company etc., a piece of paper from a particular university doesn't always equate to common sense, nor does it mean they're the particular best at their profession. I'm leaning the latter when it comes to the WDNR heads from recent past.

Brent,
I'll indeed give ya that.

And, in that particular year, when the baiting ban was instituted, I noticed, for once, a lack of beotching from hunters in the northwoods. I think many of our problems with deer (and without them) in the northern third of the state stems from baiting.

Any thunks on that?

I don't do the biologist thing anymore. I didn't have the political will and people skills to want to go further in it.

I'm guessing if you asked most TX hunters they would give at least a favorable review of TPWD even if they didn't agree with a lot of stuff they do. One thing I give them credit for is how often they meet with the public. Every rule and law change goes thru multiple public input meetings where both sides give a reason as to for and against.

I can't count the number of times I've either been a part of of or known a biologist to take a hunter or landowner out on a spotlight survey (and not a spotlight of hey look there's deer over there and deer over here type - an actual population survey) or let them look at the harvest data in the office, or show them on their own property how to do an effective browse survey etc...Like I said in TX you can call your regional biologist or technician and get them out on your property in pretty short order if you want to talk to them. That's their job.

When the new antler restrictions started in a limited number of counties a few years ago in the eastern part of the state it was expected to stay experiment for something like 3-5 years then a slow gradual roll out with more meetings etc...However one thing the biologist kept hearing at the meeting was when was their county going to get in on it and the program was rolled out bigger and quicker than first thought.

Like I said you spend most of your time managing and dealing with people. All the good fun stuff in the field is done for free by grad students and undergrad assistants I had no desire to deal with people all the time lol.

One thing I guarantee you'll see is his infamous slide of the ground and the trees and even a tire in the woods painted green....deer eat anything that's green right? So we can just paint everything green and that fixes the problem right?

You can call it a lot of things, but political appeasement it was not. Everyone did, and still does, hate them. Including, of course you.

So, what would you have done Mr. Armchair expert? Care to take a shot in the dark? It was certainly, most certainly, not there for a long time. Do you homework.

Yep, they showed they can implement policy quickly, but there was no common sense in the process. They drew CWD boundaries and told the hunters to shoot all the deer within. When the herd did not get thinned enough for them they blamed the hunters, then sent in sharpshooters. That did not set well with many hunters.

Another thing, the deer did not read the regulation boundaries and they crossed the lines at will. There were cases that hunters killed weak and unhealthy looking deer out of the zone and brought the condition to the attention of DNR LEO's thinking they would take the deer for necropsy. The hunters were basically ignored.

You want us to applaud them for their fast and furious action? It was a joke, a folly. Millions of fish and game dollars could have been spent more wisely.

I don't need to do my homework. I don't work for the DNR. But don't bullshitt me about what is going on, and how it's going to be handled, and then lie about that too. (the dnr, not you)

We've had this conversation about 3 times already, so I don't think it needs to be done AGAIN.

But I don't hate them. I work or did...with a lot of great folks from the WIDNR on at least a weekly basis. I hate how they seem to be tring to make it harder and harder to hunt in a once great state to do so. Hell, I moved there becuase the hunting was so great. That was short lived. I don't like how the "public input" meetings are held without any public input allowed from "the public." Or how we're told baiting is how CWD is spread, then the sharpshooters are using bait. I can listen to a lot of things Brent, but bullshitt isn't one of them.

I'm not claiming to be an expert on this subject. I'm saying how nice it is to see an outside influence take a look at how poorly the DNR was run by the last Governer. If you don't think it was politically influinced, you've had too much of the kool-aid.

roundoak, you obviously don't understand much about dealing with diseases if you think there was "no common sense".

While all the internet experts and LITOM's sit around bejabbering the "common sense" approaches, the battle was absolutely certain to be lost.

There is a time to be quick and that was one of them. I'm amazed they had the balls to pull it off in the modern world of "everyone one but me is an idiot".

Hunters were never ignored. In fact, they were the only reason it was done in the first place. It amazes me how you slap the hand that feeds you more deer per square mile than anyone with "common sense" would ever conceive of as a good thing.

Brentd, you obviously don't have much experience with common sense and would have fit right in with the deer managers and the former deer expert Keith Warnke who designed the CWD deer eradication plan. This plan will be studied for years, not for success, but how not to deal with CWD in a deer herd.

If us laymen express an opinion that differs from the enlightened elite, you start name calling....armchair experts, internet experts and LITOM's, etc.. We could return the name calling but that would drag us down to your level and that does not serve a purpose in the interest of a respectable debate.

It would be a refreshing change if you would educate us first and belittle us last.

It feeds right into what what most of the outdoorsmen have a problem with, withing the WIDNR. To a "T" really.