Stop funding crop damage from licenses

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

I think we should insist that crop damage cease to be funded from hunting licenses.  This is part of why the system is broken.  When you get some bunny-hugger landowner who will not allow any hunting on his 10 acre parcel, it doesn't take long for the deer to learn to hide out on those parcels during the day only to sack the farm fields by night. 
 
The crop damage is not the fault of the deer hunters - As evidenced by the lack of deer sightings - hunters certainly shoot their share of deer.  The crop damage is caused by landowners whose practice of harboring deer cause deer damage to remain high in private land areas while public areas suffer from a deer dearth.
 
If farmers are paid anything for deer damage it should be funded by the neighboring owners who refuse to hunt and/or allow hunting.  They are the ones that cause the problem. 

[Empty Quiver]

I'm not going to agree with you on much of your post.


Were it not for hunters deer would not be managed at all and would be near extinct. Therefore no crop depredation. It's just a cost of managing a herd. I don't think you want your herd managed with general revenue funds, do you? Who do you think is going to win a I gots to have money contest Milwaukee voters or deer hunting voters? Feed the homeless humans or the homeless wildlife?


Non-hunters have property rights too. The thoughts of a property owner about hunting or hunters may have nothing to do with hugging bunnies. Furthermore, those deer on the out of bounds property are next years seed so to speak. Would you be willing to host a group of sec. 8 housing families for a nice picnic in your back yard. I mean the public parks are just used up all summer and you have all that space and all.


Now if it comes to tying depredation management dollars to hunting access, we can start to agreeing on some things. Perhaps an "approved list of qualified hunters", those who have demonstrated high proficiency with weapons, solid background, and maybe some sort of liability insurance. ( this is pretty much what professional hunters/snipers possess ) These skills could pretty much would mirror a Concealed Carry Permit application process. This could alleviate landowner security or safety concerns.


I can appreciate your frustration, but the cure does not involve diminishing the rights of property owners. I could easily get behind elimination of all depredation payments. Easily accessed "free money" does nothing but encourage posting of property at a time when deer herds are over populated. If things change in the future and populations need the protection then by all means reinstate the programs.


Might be that helping with the property tax on that bit of woods you want to hunt would get the gate opened, I don't know.






 

[buck460XVR]

Were it not for hunters deer would not be managed at all and would be near extinct. Therefore no crop depredation. It's just a cost of managing a herd. I don't think you want your herd managed with general revenue funds, do you? Who do you think is going to win a I gots to have money contest Milwaukee voters or deer hunting voters? Feed the homeless humans or the homeless wildlife?


Non-hunters have property rights too. The thoughts of a property owner about hunting or hunters may have nothing to do with hugging bunnies. Furthermore, those deer on the out of bounds property are next years seed so to speak.

^^^Good points.

Around here the large(and small) parcels around here that harbor the majority of the deer that are inaccessible to deer hunters are not owned by "bunny huggers" but by deer hunters themselves. These folks make their own quotas and generally keep deer numbers higher than most game biologists like to see. These deer then need to push out from these sanctuaries at night to feed. Much of the time this is in the neighboring farmer's fields. These land owners could care less if your hunting license is helping to pay for the damage done to their neighbors  crops by the deer they harbor/protect. They just want to see lots of deer when they hunt and do not want this spoiled by allowing other hunters access to their land.

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

Ok.  I may have mischaracterized the non-hunting landowners as bunny huggers.
 
But my point is not to say that we should eliminate landowner rights.   However, a landowners rights stop where his property line ends and the next landowner's begins.  So if one landowner wants lots of deer, I think it is only just that he pay for the damage those deer cause when this is a result of his own land use practices.  The hunters are not the one's causing the deer damage.
 
The reason I think this might be a part of the solution is because it would potentially cause the sanctuary owners to harvest more deer or put more pressure on their property.  This would result in the DNR reducing the quota for the entire management unit. 
 
Say you have a management unit that is half public land and half private land.  The DNR sets the population goal based on the land use.  If the private land has a lot of agriculture and those farmers complain of a lot of damage, the DNR will set a goal accordingly.  If the unit as a whole is over populated, the DNR will issue limitless tags.
 
What ends up happening is those tags get filled on the public land, and the deer in the sanctuaries survive.  Farmers continue to complain, and the DNR issues another season's-worth of unlimited antlerless tags.  And the deer on the public land go through another slaughter.  This has continued for at least two decades until we are now in a situation where hunters hardly see any deer on public land.
 
If, on the other hand, the sanctuary owners faced the reality that giving safe-haven to all those crop pests could cost them money they may decide the safe-haven isn't worth it (Or they could decide it's worth it).  If they can avoid paying money by harvesting more deer on their property they might.  This will cause the population of the unit as a whole to go down.  Once it meets the goal the DNR will reign back on the antlerless permits resulting in better survival on the public properties.
 
If the alternative is to let deer go unmanaged in agricultural areas, I think that the sanctuary owners, be they bunny-huggers or other hunters, would realize it is in their best interest to put some pressure on their properties rather than let the farmers, shoot, trap, and poison deer to extinction. 

[Empty Quiver]

That is where stopping the "subsidized" crop damage comes in. I agree, if you have a problem with depredation you need to agree to killing deer before the check gets cut. Otherwise you will be liable for the "feed bill", not the hunters.


Telling the DNR that your deer are eating my crops, " I need reimbursed " is not right.  The DNR's answer should be along the lines of " We have a solution it's called hunting... on your farm.  When the numbers cannot be controlled then write the check. There are areas where hunter recruitment isn't really keeping up, though I think a fair amount of that can be traced back to private owners not wanting to open up their land, and that is their right. In those areas checks may have to be written either to farmers or "snipers", as long as the state maintains possession of wild game.

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

There are areas where hunter recruitment isn't really keeping up, though I think a fair amount of that can be traced back to private owners not wanting to open up their land, and that is their right. In those areas checks may have to be written either to farmers or "snipers", as long as the state maintains possession of wild game.

Heck with that.  I still don't see why the money should come from the hunter's licenses.  The hunters are the ones getting posted off the land to begin with, then they're expected to pay for the crop damage?!  What a load of BS.
 
I've been on crop damage hunts.  The farmers making the claims DO have to allow hunting in order to get the check.  The problem is the deer learn quickly that the farmer's neighbors do not have to allow hunting.  Great!  That's they're property right - let the crop damage check come from their property taxes.  Or let the farmers poison, trap, nightshoot the deer to oblivion.  The hunters wouldn't be out anything since they can't hunt there anyway.