Pat Durkin
If you need controversial issues to make you attend Wisconsin’s statewide Fish and Wildlife Rule Hearings each April, mark your calendar for 7 p.m. April 8.
These hearings — held simultaneously in all 72 counties — will replay some of Wisconsin’s most divisive conservation issues of 2012. Think of the 2013 spring hearings as TiVo in person, presented by the Department of Natural Resources and Wisconsin Conservation Congress.
As a reminder, the WCC is our 360-member citizen advisory group to the Natural Resources Board, which sets DNR policy. Unlike most hearings, this one includes ballots to record attendees’ votes on proposed changes to DNR fish and wildlife rules, as well as “advisory questions” from the DNR, WCC or DNR Board. Advisory questions are just that: advice only.
This year’s questionnaire covers 99 topics, of which the first 47 are proposed DNR rule changes.
Sure, anglers will get testy about a proposal to allow motor trolling statewide. And hunters will debate whether to legalize rifles for deer hunting statewide, and allow ground blinds and tree stands to remain overnight on DNR-owned lands.
But those are mere warm-ups. Expect fireworks once the advisory questions start. The first four – questions 48-51, suggest rules for training hounds to track gray wolves.
Even that’s foreplay for Question 68 from DNR Board member Dave Clausen, Amery, which asks: “Would you favor legislation to prohibit the use of dogs to hunt and train dogs to hunt wolves?”
If you attended any wolf hearings in 2012, you know about heat, drama and red faces, even evictions. You’ll probably hear nothing new at these hearings, but you’ll have no trouble hearing it, with or without microphones.
Expect the night’s second caterwaul from Question 70, which asks if Wisconsin should overturn the DNR Board’s compromise that restricts gun hunting in state parks to Nov. 15 to Dec. 15, and from April 1 to the third spring turkey season.
That compromise by the seven-citizen DNR Board rejected a comprehensive plan from DNR staff to greatly expand hunting and trapping in state parks. The agency crafted that plan to implement Act 169, which lawmakers passed a year ago to address a 2011 WCC advisory question that passed in all 72 counties for hunting and all but one for trapping.
Congress Chairman Rob Bohmann, Racine, expects the wolf and state-park questions to attract many citizens who seldom hunt, trap or fish. That should boost attendance at hearings statewide, but Bohmann expects the largest crowds in Dane, Kenosha, Waukesha, Milwaukee and possibly Door counties. These largely urban and suburban counties organized large, vocal groups to oppose wolf hunting and hunting in state parks last year.
Bohmann also expects nonhunters to nominate their candidates to oppose some WCC delegates up for re-election. Delegate elections for each county are the hearings’ first agenda item. Attendees must be county residents to vote in elections.
“We could see some vulnerable incumbents if enough opponents show up,” Bohmann said. “But these are public hearings. We want people to attend and express their views.”
Statewide attendance for spring hearings has exceeded 10,000 four times since 1970, and averaged 7,200 the past 43 years. Three of the highest totals occurred since 2000, when a record 30,685 debated whether to open a mourning dove hunt. The latest hearing to draw a crowd (13,126) was 2005 when the WCC proposed hunters be allowed to shoot feral cats.
Meanwhile, hunters, anglers and trappers should find enough internal issues to divide them. For instance, DNR Board member Greg Kazmierski, Pewaukee, offered two options to expand crossbow hunting. Wisconsin allows only handicapped people and those 65 and older to use crossbows during archery season. Elsewhere, 21 states allow crossbows full access to archery season, with Kansas and Mississippi the most recent to relax restrictions.
Question 66 asks if everyone should be allowed to use crossbows during archery season, and Question 67 asks if full crossbow inclusion should be limited to bow season’s first 29 days.
The WCC also wants to know if we should quit requiring deer hunters to wear back tags with large ID numbers. Wisconsin and New York are the only states still requiring such displays.
Those are just a few of the questions awaiting public appraisal. To view the entire questionnaire and learn the location of county hearing sites, visit http://dnr.wi .gov/ About/WCC/Documents/ spring_hearing/2013/ 2013SpringQuestion naireFinal.pdf.