{"id":7295,"date":"2023-11-24T05:03:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-24T06:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=7295"},"modified":"2023-11-24T15:57:42","modified_gmt":"2023-11-24T15:57:42","slug":"wisconsin-deer-harvest-down-by-thousands-compared-to-first-weekend-last-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=7295","title":{"rendered":"Wisconsin Deer Harvest Down by Thousands Compared to First Weekend Last Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/wisconsin-deer-harvest-down-by-thousands-compared-to-first-weekend-last-year\/tcsquare\/2023\/11\/24\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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by Benjamin Yount<\/h5>\n

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Wisconsin\u2019s Department of Natural Resources is not surprised by the low numbers out of the state\u2019s first weekend of gun deer hunting and not worried, yet.<\/p>\n

The DNR reported hunters harvested 92,050 deer last weekend, compared to 103,623 for the first weekend last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn general, I think the most common theme and as people are discussing the weekend, I think they\u2019re using the words quiet and slow to a certain degree,\u201d DNR Deer Program Specialist Jeff Pritzl told reporters. \u201cThat\u2019s based on what people see and hear in terms of shots fired and hearing about deer harvested.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, Pritzl said the first weekend numbers are down 16% from 2022, and 10% below the 5-year average.<\/p>\n

But Pritzl said the lower deer harvest numbers are not a surprise.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t unexpected,\u201d Pritzl said. \u201cComparing last year, we had snow cover we didn\u2019t this year. So, we kind of anticipated we wouldn\u2019t hit last year\u2019s opening weekend marks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pritzl also says there were simply fewer antlerless deer in the state for hunters to shoot at. Last winter\u2019s harsh conditions, particularly in northern Wisconsin seemed to have thinned the deer herd this year.<\/p>\n

The DNR, ahead of this year\u2019s deer season, sounded an alarm about the aging population of deer hunters and the need to get more young people involved.<\/p>\n

Pritzl said that remains a worry for the future, based on the number of hunting licenses sold in Wisconsin this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur total license sales, that we track every day as we lead up to the gun season, were down, as it\u2019s been the case. But it\u2019s down less than 1%, we\u2019re at about 0.6% off of last year at this time,\u201d Pritzl said. \u201cThat is total license sales. A lot of our deer hunters in Wisconsin now are dual license purchasers. They participate in both the archery seasons and the gun season.\u201d<\/p>\n

The DNR is also reporting two hunting related shootings.<\/p>\n

One, in Forest County, saw a hunter shoot himself in the foot while trying to adjust his rifle sling. The other saw a hunter in Adams County shoot a woman in the stomach while she was walking her dog through the woods. She had to be flown to the local hospital.<\/p>\n

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Benjamin Yount is a contributor to The Center Square.\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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The post Wisconsin Deer Harvest Down by Thousands Compared to First Weekend Last Year<\/a> appeared first on The Wisconsin Daily Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/wisconsin-deer-harvest-down-by-thousands-compared-to-first-weekend-last-year\/tcsquare\/2023\/11\/24\/ by Benjamin Yount \u00a0 Wisconsin\u2019s Department of Natural Resources…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":3495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-daily-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7296,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7295\/revisions\/7296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}