Just days before the statewide Conservation Congress sessions this Monday, the DNR issues a positive report on targeting deer.
Using sharpshooters to thin out the deer herd in Chronic Wasting Disease zones is controversial. Many hunters don't like it.
The DNR's CWD Operations Supervisor, Alan Crossley, thinks there's a perception the DNR is doing something hunters could be doing. But Crossley says killing deer with sharpshooters is only one tool that compliments the hunters' efforts. For one thing, the DNR's "hunters" can get on land other hunters normally can't.
Crossley says the DNR has shot only one point seven per cent of all deer killed in the CWD zones. But the efforts have been effective. Eighty per cent of the kills were antlerless compared to fifty per cent for hunters and a little more than twelve per cent tested positive.
The DNR calls sharp shooting supplemental. Most of the fight against CWD, Crossley says, will still be on the backs of the state's hunters.