Deer hunters group says DNR's deer population flawed

[Fish Felon]

Deer hunters group says DNR's deer population review is seriously flawed

April 05, 2015 - 9:13 AM


The Minnesota Deer Hunters Association believes the state’s deer goal-setting process needs fixing.

Minnesota’s largest deer hunter group says the state’s whitetail population goal-setting process is seriously flawed and should be changed or scrapped.

“It’s a mess,” said Craig Engwall, executive director of the 15,000-member Minnesota Deer Hunters Association. “My gut feeling is that it was stacked against hunters.”

The Department of Natural Resources currently is reviewing whitetail population goals in 40 permit areas in the northeast, north-central and east-central regions of the state. Citizen advisory teams were formed and met in February and March. It’s part a of three-year process begun last year by the DNR to review deer populations in all 128 permit areas.

But Engwall said members of his group who served on the latest advisory teams complained that the process limited their recommendations.

“The DNR refused to allow teams to make recommendations for population increases above 50 percent,” Engwall said, though some areas clearly could sustain greater whitetail population increases. The deer harvest was .66 per square mile in one permit area, and .78 where Engwall hunts, he said.

“It’s pretty logical that it could increase 100 percent [in those areas] over the next five years,” he said.

Several advisory group members wanted increases much greater than 50 percent in some permit areas, Engwall said. But the advisory groups were given five choices regarding deer populations: no change, 25 percent or 50 percent reductions, or 25 percent or 50 percent increases.


“The failure of DNR to even strive for increases above 50 percent reflects a self-defeating attitude that is not remotely responsive to the desires of Minnesota deer hunters,” Engwall wrote in a letter he sent to DNR officials last week outlining his concerns.

The DNR also required the groups to have an 80 percent supermajority to make recommendations, which Engwall said also was problematic. It gives those with minority positions too much influence, he said.

“If a group couldn’t get the 80 percent supermajority, it would officially have no recommendation,” Engwall said. Two advisory teams failed to make recommendations.

“We think they [DNR] have significant procedural flaws,” he said.

Leslie McInenly, the DNR’s big game program leader, said officials wouldn’t comment on Engwall’s letter until they had talked to him. “We want to respond to them [MDHA] directly,” she said.

That hunters want more deer isn’t surprising. Last year’s whitetail harvest of about 139,500 was the lowest kill in 25 years. Hunters have told legislators and DNR officials that the deer herd was reduced too much several years ago, following a similar deer population goal-setting process completed in 2005-07.

Said MDHA member Doug Appelgren: “I’ve been hunting for more than 40 years, and I hardly saw any deer last season. Most of my neighbors didn’t see a deer. It’s been the worst we’ve seen it.”

Engwall has told the DNR he would like the agency to manage for a yearly deer harvest of 225,000 by 2019.

The five advisory groups for those 40 permit areas have made their recommendations, though Engwall would like to see the process reopened. He recommended the groups vote using a supermajority of two-thirds, and that they be allowed to recommend a deer population increase greater than 50 percent.

The DNR is accepting public comments on the recommendations through April 15. DNR Commissioner Tom Landwehr eventually will approve recommendations, and the DNR is expected to announce final population goals by June.

Doug Smith • 612-673-7667

[HnkrCrash]

Regardless of the reason the DNR liberalized the seasons, fabricated or otherwise, the deer just didn’t shoot themselves. All of the idiots complaining that they want their deer back should have been thinking about that when they, their friends, or family members were shooting 3,4,5 deer per person just because the DNR said they could. Now to complain that there are no deer left is asinine. Hunters, predators, and winter are the reason there are no deer left, not the DNR. The DNR didn’t kill a single deer, overwhelmingly, hunters did. As for myself, my group took one extra deer total during the years when we were allowed to take 5 each. We had plenty of opportunity to shoot lots more, but we were smart enough to realize that once the deer is dead, it’s dead, regardless of what the DNR may have allowed us to do. The finger pointing solely at the DNR is laughable. All of these people have nobody to blame but themselves.

[mulefarm]

There are plenty of deer. Too many lazy hunters not willing to put the extra time and miles on. They just go to the same spots each year and expect to get their deer. The last 2 years have been awesome!

[greatwhitehunter3!]

Ton of deer here.

[Drunk_Dynasty]

If you can't kill a deer in MN with a gun, you flat out suck at hunting.

[Trigger]

If you can't kill a deer in MN with a gun, you flat out suck at hunting.

I suck at deer hunting. On our land last year, where in the good years of the early 2000's I saw up to 10 deer a day, I saw one fawn track in 3 days of hunting. The most deer the 8 of us have ever taken in a year was 5, only a couple of us actually enjoy venison.
There are not that many deer in Minnesota as of right now. Maybe in some parts, but overall the population is small.

[Nershi]

Yea I'd agree some areas are really slim, especially in wolf country. I spend a lot of time in the woods and around here you see more wolf tracks than deer tracks.

I'll be down in the SW part of the state turkey hunting in a couple weeks and the deer are thick down there.

[gimpfinger]

Yea I'd agree some areas are really slim, especially in wolf country. I spend a lot of time in the woods and around here you see more wolf tracks than deer tracks.

I'll be down in the SW part of the state turkey hunting in a couple weeks and the deer are thick down there.

Or they are just concatenated what little habitat that's left in sw mn.

Team Power Dump

[Drunk_Dynasty]

If you can't kill a deer in MN with a gun, you flat out suck at hunting.

I suck at deer hunting.

Probz

[greatwhitehunter3!]

I'll be down in the SW part of the state turkey hunting in a couple weeks and the deer are thick down there.

Sure are. What general area you hunting?