It is hard to believe that Outagamie, Brown, Kewaunee, Door,
Winnebago and Calumet Counties had no deer hunting seasons for
from 41-54 years during the period from 1901-1954.
Then dip back to 1851-1858 when any kind of deer could be shot
statewide between July 1-Jan. 31. Deer were reported to be
numerous in Door County in 1882. By 1888 a deer scarcity was
being reported from the northern counties.
They were common in Waupaca County in 1897 but by 1912 there
were no deer to be found in Door, Kewaunee, Brown, Outagamie,
Winnebago, Calumet, Manitowoc and other counties to the south.
How eagerly my brothers and I, while attending grade school
during the mid-1930’s in Kewaunee, looked forward to a Sunday
afternoon in spring when my Dad would take us west of town to
Lipsky’s Tavern, adjacent to the large Lipsky’s Swamp, to see the
deer.
It was an exciting event even though they were enclosed in a
large pen at least an acre in size. My Dad’s main objective was
to get several bushels of dried peat for his gardening. Ours was
to get to scratch the friendly deer’s noses through the fence and
to admire them.
In order to better appreciate and more fully understand our
number one (official) wildlife animal of Wisconsin let’s take an
overall look at the animal and some of its habits. Deer are
essentially browsers, not grazers. Their bread and butter diet
consists of leaves and twigs. Unless a twig is pithy and soft,
such as staghorn sumac, the deer will seldom eat those larger in
diameter than a pencil. Since they have no front teeth on the
upper jaw they are forced to grasp the twig crosswise with their
lower and upper molars quite far back in their mouth and rip it
off the shrub or tree.
It is very easy to look at a shrub that has been browsed and
realize whether it was eaten by a cottontail or a deer. Having
very sharp upper and lower incisors, a cottontail will nip off
the twigs as cleanly as though done by a knife or pruning shears.
The fact that a deer has to rip the twig from the shrub leaves a
very jagged edge on the plant.
Deer much prefer the tender shoots, twigs and leaves of woody
plants to grass-like vegetation. Should they, in their ranging,
come across some of their favorite foods they will remain in the
area until the supply has been exhausted. Their prime choices
include acorns, beechnuts, hazlenuts, apples, corn, cabbage,
lettuce and newly fallen leaves. Reading this list makes it easy
to understand the fact that deer have adapted, in some areas,
almost too well for existing conditions.
Plainly and simply the food must provide them with heat and
energy, promote growth and reproduction, and protect against
deficiency diseases. As the natural food supply becomes
over-browsed, coupled with deepening winter snows, the deer must
accept food far down on both the scale of palatability and
nourishment. Now they must resort to their starvation foods such
as red pine, balsam fir and the spruces. Balsam fir very likely
stands at the head of the list of winter foods eaten in northern
Wisconsin by deer.
It is usually quite easy in northeastern Wisconsin, where the
soil is limy and the white cedars grow well, to know where the
deer herd is high. Here the browse line on the cedars will be so
uniform that you’d think someone with gigantic hedge clippers had
trimmed off all the twigs up to around five feet above the
ground. As I recall, a whitetail can include upwards of 50-75%
of its winter diet in white cedar and still maintain reasonably
good health.
I would be the last to oppose the legal shooting of deer. A
proper balance between the deer population and available natural
food should, ideally, be maintained. Think again if you are of
the opinion that Wisconsin’s deer hunting program is completely
out of whack. It is my feeling that our state’s experts on the
overall deer situation do an excellent job – first class.
I am very strongly opposed to the scores of hunters who do
not know how or when to fire their rifles properly, resulting in
too many crippled deer and endangered humans. To illustrate this
point I often think of a true story as told by an old Texas
Ranger in a book entitled "Huntin’ Gun," written by
Holland. This old timer knew rifles well and was an excellent
shot.
At one time during duty he took overnight refuge with an old
trapper in his cabin. They got to talking about guns that
evening and the trapper invited the ranger to accompany him on a
hunt for a mule deer the next morning. His supply of meat was
running low.
They had a considerable ride on their horses to the hunting
area the next day. The old ranger thoroughly enjoyed watching
the trapper set up the hunt, stalk the game, finally outwit a
nice buck and kill it cleanly with one shot. After the trapper
had dressed out the animal the ranger told him how he admired his
great skill and his fine rifle. It was almost natural that he
would ask the trapper, "Do you mind if I fire your rifle to see
how it handles?"
Embarrassed, and quite sheepishly, the trapper looked up and
said, "Gosh, I’d be more than happy to let you fire my
rifle, but I can’t. You see, I brought only one cartridge with
me today!"
The uniform "browse line" from deer is evident on these white cedar trees.
This column appeared in the Door County Advocate on 11/19/1999.
© Copyright 1999 Roy Lukes. All rights reserved.
