Payments For Positives merits a trial run
Wisconsin is now 17 years into the wildlife management horror show known as chronic wasting disease.
As is widely known, CWD is fatal to white-tailed deer and elk.
But that’s just the start. The disease also can poison public trust in natural resource managers and eat away at the finances, time and morale of state agencies.
From my experience, it has a negative impact on hunting traditions and hunting-related economic activity, too.
And it can be a wedge that divides members of the hunting community.
I was present for one of the first scenes of our state’s CWD story, a public meeting in 2002 that drew more than 1,000 people to the Waukesha Expo Center. A palpable sense of anxiety filled the facility that evening. What would the new disease mean to the state’s deer herd? And to its hunters?
The short answer is Wisconsin has become ground zero on the planet for CWD among wild deer.
A fraction of southern Wisconsin bounded by Iowa, Dane, Richland and Sauk counties likely has more CWDpositive deer in it right now than any state or province has had in the history of the disease.
CWD has spread to more than 20 Wisconsin counties, both human-assisted and by natural animal movement, and its prevalence has increased.
The DNR is leading a world-class research project in southwestern Wisconsin to study whether CWD can affect the density or population of the local deer herd. It’s the first such work in a deerrich habitat east of the Mississippi River.
Studies in the western U.S. have already concluded that CWD can drive down deer and elk populations.
The $1.3 billion (the estimated size of Wisconsin’s hunting economy) question is: Can anything be done to slow or stop the spread?
The challenge at this point seems as daunting as placing a human on Mars. But if no effort is made, the result is certain: CWD will be found statewide.
That’s why I support a proposal called Payments for Positives, or P4P.
The idea has been circulating for about a year; I wrote about it last January after Mike Foy, one of its organizers, made a presentation at the 78th Midwest Fish and Wildlife Conference in Milwaukee.
The program would provide a cash payment to hunters and landowners who kill, sample and register a CWDpositive deer. Business owners who provide sampling services also would be compensated.
“You want, if possible, to remove sick deer faster than they can spread the disease,” Foy said. “Especially around the margins of disease areas, it could help confine CWD.”
So far, six state conservation organizations have officially endorsed a pilot study of the proposal.
The most recent to support the idea was the Wisconsin Bowhunters Association. At its January meeting, the group’s board of directors voted unanimously in support of a trial of the program, said Mike Brust, WBH president.
The WBH joined five other groups – the Buffalo County Conservation Alliance, La Crosse County Conservation Alliance, Sauk County Conservation Alliance, Winnebagoland Conservation Alliance and Wisconsin Wildlife Federation - that previously supported PFP.
Brust said if P4P worked, it would not just help keep the deer herd healthy but also be good for the economy.
The DNR tried a smaller version of the proposal in the mid-2000s, Foy said. It petered out, mostly due to lack of funding and manpower.
“We had limited staff to try it,” Foy said. “But if we could ultimately enlist the more than 700,000 Wisconsin deer hunters in an effort, then you’d be in an entirely different position.”
Where would funding for a P4P trial come from?
Foy said he wouldn’t rule anything out, including donations from hunting industry companies or wealthy individuals. But it could also be publicly-funded.
Foy points to the three pro sport teams in Wisconsin receiving nearly $1 billion in taxpayer funding over the last two decades for their stadiums.
“Why wouldn’t people, including politicians, support a plan like this to protect the $1 billion deer hunting industry in the state?” Foy said.
So what do you think?
You have a couple months to decide, actually. The Wisconsin Conservation Congress will put the question before the public on April 8 at the 2019 Spring Hearings.
It will ask: Do you favor conducting a pilot CWD Payment for Positives program to test if CWD testing rates and removal of CWD-positive deer can be increased from infected areas?
Three funding levels are provided as examples in the question to help gauge potential costs, ranging from payments of $750, $1,000 or $1,250 for each CWDpositive deer. When payments to the hunter, landowner and sampling site are factored in, the three examples would cost an estimated $900,000, $1.15 million and $1.4 million, respectively.
Since I wrote about P4P last year, our CWD problem has only worsened.
For the future of our deer herd and hunting traditions, it’s high time to give P4P a try.