# Prevalence of CWD in WI map updated ...



## Pinefarm (Sep 19, 2000)

Baiting is "so successful"? One could argue baiting makes hunters less sucessful in some area's.

The South Carolina DNR did a study of this very matter. The results...

The South Carolina Experience 

South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (DNR) biologist Charles Ruth has been researching the subject of baiting and how effective it is from both a hunting and management perspective. At the Quality Deer Management Associations (QDMA) 2005 annual conference, Ruth discussed recent research hes conducted in his home state. The results were both surprising and enlightening.

Ruths study area, the state of South Carolina, provided an ideal laboratory. In the 18-county upstate area known as the Piedmont, baiting is prohibited by DNR regulations. In the Coastal Plain region, it is not addressed in regulations, and thus allowed by default. 

Its a real weird situation how we got where we are, said Ruth. The difference is primarily attributable to history. There were always deer in the Coastal Plain, he noted. Hunting in that region was done predominantly with dogs. Baiting was never an issue. By the late 1970s, and especially the mid-1980s, the region saw a rapid shift to still hunting. 

Since there was no law against it, people started baiting, and now its entrenched, Ruth added. To a large extent, weve moved past what I would call baiting, and into supplemental feeding. 

In this case, supplemental feeding refers to large-scale feeding programs (not mineral/vitamin supplement feeding).

The Piedmont situation was quite different. Formerly, deer were absent. There were some restoration efforts, but most of the population growth was natural and gradual. By the late 1950s, the DNR established a hunting season. As deer numbers were low, they prohibited hunting over bait.

This divergence has led to a lot of confusion. Many residents dont understand the difference, and they feel the DNR is being arbitrary and capricious in their regulations. Theres ongoing pressure to prescribe baiting as acceptable practice, Ruth said. Its not prescribed in the Coastal Plain; its simply permitted by omission. Meanwhile, DNR biologists do not support baiting due to biological, social and ethical issues.

South Carolinas high deer population exacerbates the baiting problem. 

*Many believe that hunting with bait leads to better hunter success and higher harvest rates, Ruth said, and this should lead to a better deer management situation. 

DNR biologists disagreed, and they set out to prove it.*

What they did, quite simply, is compare harvest and effort between the two aforementioned regions over roughly a four-year period. In their experiment, the Piedmont, with no baiting, represented the control, while the Coastal Plain represented the treatment. They also made two assumptions: first, deer densities across regions were comparable, and second, there were no effects due to season length. Ruth noted there is a perception that deer densities are much higher in the Coastal Plain. While he believes densities are similar, he admits the Coastal Plain may have slightly more deer. He also acknowledged that the Coastal Plain has a longer season  140 days  versus 109 days for the Piedmont, which may have influenced some results.

Results

*The results, Ruth said, were shocking. *And the more data we gathered, the more our findings were reinforced. For starters, the Piedmonts total deer harvest was 33 percent greater than that of the Coastal Plain. More important from a management standpoint was the doe harvest, which was 41 percent higher in the Piedmont; and the number of does harvested per buck, which was 12 percent higher in the Piedmont. That may be significant to a biologist, but what about a hunter? Not only did hunters kill more deer where baiting is prohibited, but they expended less effort to do so. 

Results in the Coastal Plain were even more revealing. Not surprisingly, Coastal Plain hunters accounted for more days afield, which Ruth attributed to the longer season. However, they had to hunt longer to take a deer. Piedmont hunters accounted for six percent fewer days per deer harvested. 

These results were counterintuitive and naturally beg the question: Why? 

*We know through research that baiting changes deer movements and distribution, Ruth said. He cited other research that shows when bait is available, deer tend to visit bait sites more at night, and it is mostly younger animals that visit during daylight. He also cited results from one study area in South Carolina where baiting had evolved to supplemental feeding. There, the ratio of night visits to bait sites compared to day visits was 25:1. Given these results, if your goal is to harvest more deer, baiting may actually work against you as a hunter; and as Ruth pointed out, its not going to help you much from an overall management standpoint.*

Baiting can also be the first step on a slippery slope. Ruth has observed a growing trend from baiting to supplemental feeding. Looking at the effect of bait on body condition and local deer densities, he observed that both increase as you move from baiting to supplemental feeding. For his example, he compared data from an area with supplemental feeding and a nearby wildlife management area that doesnt allow baiting or feeding. In the area where feeding took place, deer had greater body weights in nine of ten sex/age classes, Ruth said. So you can artificially prop up your deer physically. 

Hunters in the supplemental feeding area spent 34 percent more man-days per deer harvested. Again, this is likely due to more nocturnal behavior.

While Ruth did not have any supportive data, its reasonable to assume if hunters are harvesting 33 percent fewer deer over bait, then deer numbers will also increase. You stand a chance of unnaturally supporting a higher deer population, he cautioned. 

This practice is diametrically opposed to the concept of quality deer management. Your property will hold more deer than the land could support on its own, and even with supplemental feeding, habitat will suffer, making you a slave to a very expensive feeding program. Furthermore, because deer are harder to kill, you have far less control over sex and age ratio of your population. 

There are also other social implications. One Ruth looked at was deer-vehicle collisions. 

Despite the Piedmont having a 33 percent higher human population, it had seven percent fewer deer-vehicle collisions per capita.


----------



## Pinefarm (Sep 19, 2000)

In Wisconsin, non-baiting firearms hunters had a 44% success rate and baiters had a 35% rate. Bow season was a bit different where baiters had a 52% rate and non-baiters had a 47% success rate.

That's clear that bait making hunters so successful is in the eye of the beholder.


----------



## terry (Sep 13, 2002)

Experts say politics and deer hunting tradition undermine fight against fatal brain disease 

RON SEELY Wisconsin State Journal First Posted: November 26, 2010 - 2:54 pm Last Updated: November 27, 2010 - 1:13 am

MADISON, Wis.  The fight against chronic wasting disease in Wisconsin deer is being hampered by politics and the powerful traditions of the state's annual deer hunt, according to officials and wildlife experts with the state Department of Natural Resources.

They say that even the agency's new 15-year plan for combating the fatal deer brain disease, in place for the start of the 2010 deer season, does not go far enough to control a disease they fear could spread statewide if not contained. That disturbing possibility became more real recently when a captive deer on a hunting preserve near Ashland tested positive for the illness.

Even so, Dave Clausen, a member of the Natural Resources Board, said the new plan is probably the best the agency can do in light of criticism of the DNR's past efforts, which have included longer and more numerous seasons, rules aimed at killing more female deer and the use of sharpshooters. The criticism has come from politicians, including Gov.-elect Scott Walker, and from some hunters.

"There are places where the plan does not go far enough," said Clausen. "But I don't think there is anything we could do that is politically feasible that would improve this plan much."

Ed Harvey, chairman of the Wisconsin Conservation Congress, a citizen group that advises the agency on outdoor sporting issues, agreed.

"It represents what is possible at this particular time," said Harvey. "Anything more aggressive and there would have been a massive loss of support."

Under the new plan, the DNR will:

Change the original goal of eradicating the disease to controlling its spread and reducing the number of infected deer in the state.

Prevent new introduction of the disease by more strictly monitoring deer farms and pursuing a statewide ban on baiting and feeding of deer.

Control the spread of the disease by encouraging hunting in the CWD management zones and use of limited sharpshooting. The plan also calls for a more consistent season structure.

Monitor disease trends and patterns.

Improve the communication of the science of CWD to the public.

Central to the DNR's new plan for fighting CWD is the elimination of disease eradication as a goal, which has been controversial from the moment it was put in place not long after CWD was discovered near Mount Horeb in 2002. Instead, the plan aims to keep the disease from spreading outside the areas where it now exists in southern Wisconsin. Specifically, the new goal is to "minimize the area of Wisconsin where CWD occurs and the number of infected deer in the state."

Davin Lopez, CWD coordinator for the DNR, said the emergence of new science on CWD made eradication less realistic. Research showed, for example, that the prions  the deformed proteins that cause the disease  cling stubbornly to soil and can spread the illness.

"We could get rid of all the deer, but when they came back, they'd just get reinfected," said Lopez.

In addition, the rate at which the disease is spreading within the management zone has continued to climb despite more aggressive seasons and other permit changes designed to encourage hunters to kill more deer. The DNR's data show that the disease is increasing in all sex and age groups in both eastern and western monitoring areas within the CWD management zone.

The additional seasons and special hunts seemed to do little but anger hunters, who lamented what they viewed as the loss of tradition represented by the single, nine-day gun deer season. In fact, a confusing slate of seasons statewide drew the ire of not only hunters, but the state Legislature. A legislative committee held a hearing last year at which hunters and others unloaded on the agency, charging the DNR with everything from underestimating the size of the deer herd to ruining tradition and hunting ethics by establishing so-called "earn-a-buck" areas where hunters were forced to shoot a female or young deer before killing a buck.

Last year, the number of deer killed statewide during the various deer seasons dropped 29 percent from 2008, a number cited by critics as proof of what they viewed as failed DNR policy, on both CWD and the deer hunt in general.

One of those critics, Anthony Grabski, is secretary of the Conservation Congress CWD committee and has served on the DNR's advisory group on the disease. He is highly critical of the new plan, both because he disagrees with the science on which it is based and because of the tangle of special seasons.

The DNR cites research that shows the disease spreads mostly from deer to deer as justification for its plan to reduce the density of the deer herd. But Grabski said other science actually shows spread of the disease is more closely linked to how frequently it occurs, meaning that thinning the deer herd would do little to control the disease.

Grabski also said the new plan retains a season structure that is too complex and actually discourages hunters, especially hunters who view the regular nine-day November hunt as an important tradition. He called for a return to traditional seasons, even within the CWD management zone.

"I sincerely believe more deer would be killed through this simple return to traditions," Grabski wrote.

But Lopez and others with the agency said the agency's approach of reducing density has been reviewed and approved by panels of outside experts and, despite the possible appearance in a captive deer in northern Wisconsin, has been kept largely in the southern third of the state.

Lopez said that in other states dealing with chronic wasting disease, especially Wyoming, natural resource officials have chosen to do nothing. The result has been that in both Wyoming and Colorado the disease has spread statewide. That means, Lopez said, that if a so-called "silver bullet" comes along for treating the disease  an oral vaccine for the illness is believed to be possibly between four and eight years away  a state such as Wyoming would have a difficult time taking advantage of the advance.

Though Wisconsin's approach has been more aggressive, Lopez said the new plan is still a nod to political realities. Funding for the agency's CWD efforts has been repeatedly slashed, from an initial investment of about $12 million to just more than $2 million today. And Walker, a Republican, has already indicated he is unhappy with the agency's approach to the disease and to deer management in general.

Ideally, Lopez said, agency wildlife experts would have included more aggressive approaches to thinning the deer herd in the new plan, especially in the areas just outside the management zones where the real battle lines in the fight against the disease are drawn. Lopez said keeping the disease from spreading outside those fringe areas would be easier with tools such as earn-a-buck permits and more extensive sharpshooting. But both of those methods are downplayed in the new plan, though they remain available for use on a more limited scale.

"The plan really strikes a balance between aggressive control and the realization that, ultimately, control is in the hands of politicians and the public," said Lopez. "There were some approaches we realized would just be political suicide."

___

Information from: Wisconsin State Journal, http://www.madison.com/wsj


http://www.dailyjournal.net/view/st...959c2fb2f5/WI--Exchange-Deer_Hunting-Disease/


----------



## Pinefarm (Sep 19, 2000)

MDNR did a survey where 44% were successful with bait and 52% were successful without bait.

About the only plus that ever shows up is that bowhunters are only slightly more successful with bait, but the difference is more made up by gun hunters, who are more successful without bait.


----------



## Justin (Feb 21, 2005)

If people were not successful with it, they wouldn't use it. Seems pretty simple to me. South Carolina is apples to oranges, and yes I've been there.


----------



## Pinefarm (Sep 19, 2000)

The results are similar everywhere.

The people needing bait are hunting where deer don't want to be. If there's few deer in an area, all that's happening is the guy who scouted and found where the deer are had them drawn away by someone hunting where the deer didn't want to be. 

Without the guy baiting, someone would have likely killed that deer anyway. That's why baiting is a lot like welfare. You take money from someone working and give it to someone who isn't. So, you draw deer away from the area they want to be to an area they otherwise wouldn't be.

Notice the jump in daytime deer movement since the ban. Now we see all kinds of deer 2 hours before dark. During the legal baiting days, we rarely saw many deer until the last half hour of daylight.

Many are also hunting terrible stand locations. Without bait, they'll never see deer there.


----------



## Munsterlndr (Oct 16, 2004)

:lol: So who's obsessed with baiting? 

It's a CWD thread, Bob. Wisconsin banned baiting in the CWD zone years ago, yet as this thread seems to indicate, CWD is still expanding. What exactly does baiting have to do with increased prevalence in the CWD zone?


----------



## Pinefarm (Sep 19, 2000)

From MDNR...

EFFECT ON MOVEMENT PATTERNS

There are other aspects of deer biology that could be negatively affected by unregulated baiting practices.
For example, baiting may delay deer migration to winter habitats (Ozoga and Verme 1982). A delay in migration due to fall baiting may keep deer in areas lacking natural food sources and cause starvation when sources of supplemental feed are stopped.
Another behavioral change in deer frequently attributed to deer baiting is increased nocturnal activity (Charles 1993). Synatzke (1981) observed heavy nocturnal use of bait in Texas. Use of baited sites seemed to become more nocturnal as the hunts progressed, possibly reflecting increased wariness of deer due to continuous hunting pressure. This may suggest that human disturbance rather than the influence of bait
may affect the nocturnal and diurnal behavior of deer. A Mississippi study reported that, as the number of hunters at bait sites increased, the daylight activity of the bucks at the sites decreased. That study noted that bucks used the bait stations during only 10 percent of the legal shooting hours. This suggests that human disturbance affected deer activity more so than the use of bait (Wegner 1993, as cited in Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources 1993).


----------



## Justin (Feb 21, 2005)

while I'm sure you are correct in some cases, in many you are not. My bait was rarely more than a few yards from good runways. It was a way to get deer to stop in a good position for a shot. Sometimes to get them to a particular tree. I could make a deer stand exactly like I wanted. It got to be a real challenge. It also became the only way to see deer when the neighboring landowner planted food plots. It is clear that we will never see eye to eye on this. That is okay, I still try to get something from your views.


----------



## Justin (Feb 21, 2005)

Pinefarm said:


> From MDNR...
> 
> EFFECT ON MOVEMENT PATTERNS
> 
> ...


Who said anything about "UNREGULATED" baiting?


----------



## Pinefarm (Sep 19, 2000)

All these threads are all about baiting. The key by some like you is to try and discredit and undermine state DNR's and their CWD fighting policies. Your ultimate goal from all these posts is to get baiting legal again in the LP, by hook or crook.


----------



## Munsterlndr (Oct 16, 2004)

Pinefarm said:


> All these threads are all about baiting. The key by some like you is to try and discredit and undermine state DNR's and their CWD fighting policies. Your ultimate goal from all these posts is to get baiting legal again in the LP, by hook or crook.


My goodness, he's a mind reader, too? :lol:

Maybe my goal is to prevent Michigan, which has a seriously underfunded DNR, from pissing away $30 million dollars on a prevention program that did not work, which alienated most of the states hunters and which targets an almost non-existent disease that poses no threat to humans.

But I'm sure you know better than I, my reasons for posting.


----------



## Justin (Feb 21, 2005)

I'm sorry if I pulled this thread off topic. I just hate the pot shots at baiting.


----------



## Pinefarm (Sep 19, 2000)

It doesn't take a mind reader to follow you for several 1000 posts on it. 

Do you know who knows better than you? All the state deer biologists working on this stuff all the time. You're just a guy with a keyboard, an agenda and some need to hold court, as if you're the leader of the opposition. 

You know you can't wait to go to the March NRC meeting and mock the DNR in public about the bait ban. You've done so here for several years now. 

$30M is cheap compared to the bill if we get widespread CWD. 

But your wall of degree's makes you the expert. Everyone else is wrong to you. Dr. Schmitt is wrong, Ozoga is wrong. You think you know more.

These guys leave more deer biology knowledge on their baby wipe than you ever knew. 

You're the Senator McCarthy of the Michigan-Sportsman.

To quote Mr. Welch at the McCarthy trials..."You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"


----------



## Pinefarm (Sep 19, 2000)

It's not off course. It's always on a collision course with baiting.


----------



## Justin (Feb 21, 2005)

As far as Munster going to the March meeting, I sure hope so. If I had too, I'd pay for his gas. It's nice to have somebody with a great deal of intelligence questioning the DNR/NRC. Some just follow along like sheep.


----------



## traditional (Mar 14, 2007)

I logged back on to learn more about Prions and disease.


----------



## .480 (Feb 21, 2006)

I'm with Munsterlndr 110%.
In the USA we should question the things that the "professionals" spew out of their mouths, especially when any person with an ounce of logic can see that the "professionals" are actually the ones promoting a specific agenda.

Pinefarm if you want to tell us that just because someone has a certain degree means that they are trustworthy on every matter, you are truly a peasant that will blindly follow any statements made by an "authority figure".


Sit back and try to digest some of Munsterlndr's comments. He is not bashing baiting or foodplots. He is showing the HYPOCRISY of those, including your precious biologists, who demand that baiting be banned yet promoting foodplots, watering holes and all the other ways of "legally" attracting deer to a specific location for the sole purpose of hunting.

I for one don't trust anyone, dnr biologists included, who tell me baiting is going to promote CWD yet while saying to go out and plant food plots and dig small watering holes on your land to artificially inflate deer numbers on your land. 

This is Hypocrisy at its finest.


----------



## Munsterlndr (Oct 16, 2004)

It appears that some cheeseheads remain somewhat skeptical, also. :lol:

http://forums.bowsite.com/TF/REGIONAL/thread.cfm?threadid=184212&MESSAGES=26&state=WI


----------



## cointoss (Apr 9, 2001)

*Munsterlndr vs. Pinefarm

Munsterlndr*wins by a landside!


----------

