Where are the conservation projects?
A couple weeks ago, a few friends were in the woods over a mile deep, checking to see if deer paths moved a bit. Their scouting told them to change some of their stand placements for the season. They’re practicing with their bows again.
We’ve been slinging arrows at our house.
The structure of this fall’s deer season was finalized at the state level recently. Iron County will be the only county with a buck only hunt.
The Marathon County Deer Advisory Council (CDAC) wanted to reduce the bonus antlerless permits available for private lands in Marathon County by 200 from the previous several years. The DNR wanted the permits to stay at the same levels as previous years which is 2,000 bonus permits for antlerless deer. The Natural Resource Board ended up going with the DNR’s recommendation.
It is of note that all 2,000 bonus permits have sold out in previous years. If the private landowners don’t want to harvest antlerless deer on their property, they won’t. I don’t have a dog in this fight, but maybe both sides could have come to an agreement prior to this. They are only talking about 200 permits in Wisconsin’s largest county.
WhatIgetmoreconcernedaboutstems from the quiet mumblings that seem to come up in certain circles a couple times a year to eliminate the distinction between public and private antlerless tags. I’ll just say it, I feel it comes from certain folks not wanting to follow the spirit of management, especially on public lands. Prove me wrong.
About five different times since early spring someone has asked me if I know about any big conservation projects going on in the area. I don’t know of any. In our area, the three county area, we can even include northern Wood County and eastern Eau Claire County into that. There are no conservation projects going on. Other than the county forest, there isn’t even enough forestry harvest happening to maintain a healthy diverse forest on public and private lands. A little definition might be in order. Someone putting in a food plot or watering holes on their land wouldn’t be what I call a conservation project. I would call it property management or enhancement. A lot of people are doing a lot to manage their own property and benefiting a lot of species of wildlife. This doesn’t boil down to a public land discussion and how government agencies don’t do enough. Biologist, ecologist, foresters, engineers, and techs get hamstrung a lot by lawsuits from groups that don’t like hunters. Political leadership that doesn’t like hunters or takes their campaign funds from those groups block projects. Even political leadership that says they support hunters when campaigning and then hamstrings those same agencies budget wise when creating policies hurts wildlife. If it hurts hunters, it hurts wildlife and that hurts everyone. Wildlife is the part of the land that we can measure how healthy the landscape is.
Think about what we need to be doing outside of what the government agencies do. We’re told to join conservation organizations to support wildlife and hunting. But when we don’t see any tangible return in our area across the spectrum, I see why many of us say, ‘what’s the point?’ If you join Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation or a wild sheep organization you don’t expect the dollars to be put in the ground in Clark county Wisconsin. But you expect to see something done some place.
There have been conservation projects in the area in the past. The aeration project for Sportsmen’s Lake is one. The upgrades to the boat launch and the fishing piers at that lake are others. Different private organizations spearheaded them and worked in collaboration with government agencies. The people from the Clark County Land Conservation put a lot of effort into that property. They and the local clubs deserve a pat on the back.
The future of conservation projects lies with collaboration between public and private. And let’s face it, just a few years ago we all took a tremendous blow. Both public and private organizations were shutdown. Many of us weren’t allowed to work, lost jobs, or businesses. Momentum was lost. Ideas were forgotten. We’re still recovering, but we’ll find our way back.
There are not a lot of places for big conservation projects. But there are some places and there is always someone saying, ‘what if ?’
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