Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Natural Resources Board adopts new deer management unit boundaries in emergency and permanent rules after contentious public input
Summary
The Natural Resources Board voted Feb. 20 to adopt emergency and permanent rules redrawing county-based deer management units in favor of habitat-based boundaries for parts of northern and central Wisconsin, a change supporters said will let local advisory councils manage deer more logically by habitat, and critics said needs more time and clearer local CDAC arrangements.
The Natural Resources Board voted Feb. 20 to adopt an emergency order and a companion permanent rule to change county-based deer management unit (DMU) boundaries in Wisconsin, shifting several northern counties to habitat-based units and adjusting metropolitan subunits in southeast counties.
The department had proposed the change after multi-year public outreach. Officials said the objective is to let local advisory councils make permit recommendations based on contiguous habitat units—such as forest vs. farmland—rather than county lines that sometimes split similar habitat into different management decisions. The board approved both the emergency and permanent versions of board order WM-11-24E and WM-12-24 (NR 10) by voice/roll-call vote. The emergency order will allow the new units to be used immediately for planning and quota-setting this year; the permanent rule will follow the statutory review process.
Why it matters: County-based DMUs, created in 2014, have drawn repeated…
Already have an account? Log in
Subscribe to keep reading
Unlock the rest of this article — and every article on Citizen Portal.
- Unlimited articles
- AI-powered breakdowns of topics, speakers, decisions, and budgets
- Instant alerts when your location has a new meeting
- Follow topics and more locations
- 1,000 AI Insights / month, plus AI Chat
