Last Updated: Thursday, December 4, 2008 8:28 AM CST
Forest County deer health survey samples exceed expectations
Melissa Theisen
Editor
Thanks to the help of meat processors, taxidermists and successful deer hunters, Forest and Florence County DNR biologist Jeremy Holtz far exceeded his goal of 500 samples for in the combined sample unit of Florence and Forest counties. Holtz and other DNR biologists were taking samples from deer heads during opening weekend of deer season to test for diseases like Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD).
“We collected at the following Forest County stations — Northern Sports Shop in Crandon (74 total), Corner Store in Armstrong Creek (70 total) and Wabeno (five on Saturday),” he said. With the three stations in Florence County (The Store in Long Lake, Florence Natural Resource Center, and The Fence Post), we collected 219 samples on Saturday and 185 on Sunday, by which time we had already stopped collecting at two stations. This resulted in a total of 404 samples provided directly from cooperating hunters — a number that really surprised many in the Department of Natural Resources who predicted that I was going to have a hard time getting hunters to participate voluntarily.”
Statewide, the buck harvest was down 25 percent. A total of 301 bucks were registered in Forest County, down from the 573 registered last year. The number of antlerless deer are not much better with 352 registered last year compared to the measly 166 this year in Forest County. However, in spite of the lower numbers, many Forest County hunters were more than willing to let the DNR take a sample from their deer.
“Personally, I knew if I reached out to the hunters here, I would be able to get enough support to collect the necessary samples. Across the board, if you compare number of samples to number of registrations, we had a sample rate of 65 to 70 percent of all the deer harvested. When you consider we couldn’t take fawns and some folks wanted to have their deer mounted, that sample rate is just excellent,” said Holtz. “A big factor here is that, rather than simply cutting off the entire deer head as other areas have in the past, we collected only the sample we needed, leaving the deer head attached. Hunters were more willing to participate if the head went with the deer.”
Holtz explained that if he and the other biologists were willing to take the time to explain what they are doing and why, hunters were generally receptive and appreciative that they were being proactive and trying to prevent the spread of a disease that could have a severe impact on the already relatively small deer herd in this part of the state.
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