CWD Management

[MichaelCfffg]

I'm starting this thread with some trepidation, cause I'm aware that it can be a controversial subject with some.

Anyway, I'm in Franklin County, in a CWD management area, and I just got a post card from the Missouri Conservation Department this week, inviting me to log in and apply for CWD Management permits. I'm just curious to hear from others in these management areas. Do you participate in these management programs, and what has been your success rate in culling out diseased deer?

A lot of locals I talk to are really hostile about this management program. They're convinced that the MCD is trying to get all the deer in their area killed off, and they won't have deer anymore. What are your thoughts?

 

[Bobcat]

Since the MDC has become completely political and has ignored science based management,I have completely lost any trust I had in them. The CWD program is probably more of the same. I do believe that steps need to be taken but how much of the current program is politically motivated? The wild hog problem comes to mind immediately. They have outlawed hog hunting because they said that hunting was spreading the population, in reality that is not the case. The spreading population was a few individuals either releasing captive hogs or by trapping and transplanting them into new areas to increase opportunity for hunting. The hog trappers I have seen in this area are a joke and they also bait large areas of the national forest to eliminate deer hunting in those areas during the firearms deer season. What the books don't tell them is that there are some hogs that cannot be trapped, they are a very intelligent animal and they learn quickly to avoid the traps. The same applies to helicopters. They have reduced the population dramatically BUT, the only way to eliminate the hog problem is to allow hunting. I was involved with a farm owner that wanted the hogs eliminated on his farm. He invited the MDC to trap them, they caught 16 hogs. Immediately after they stopped trapping 3 of us killed over 50 pigs on the same property in a 3 month period with rifles. That's proof enough for me that the "trained biologists" were trained by books and not by the real world experience that could effectively eliminate the problem.

I'm sorry for the rant but I can't help but think that the CWD problem is being addressed by the same people that are "eliminating" the pigs!