Dean Bortz: Wisconsin sportsmen should be tracking discussion from Natural Resources Board meetings

If anyone who reads this newspaper has a spare 20 to 25 minutes at any point in the day, please go to the Wisconsin DNR TV channel, or just type in Wisconsin Natural Resources Board (NRB) meetings and hit enter.

You will see a list of links to all NRB meetings. They are videotaped and posted on YouTube. You can watch every single minute of each meeting, or pick and choose the topics that pique your interest.

What I’m asking you to do is watch the segments from citizens who sign up for the public participation portion of the NRB meetings. We mentioned this in the past, but for those who missed it, animal rights types appear at just about every NRB meeting nowadays to rail against hunting contests, hound hunting, and anything else that doesn’t fit their image of what outdoor recreation should look like. This happened again at the June 24 NRB meeting in Black River Falls (the video is embedded below). Most of the citizens for the June meeting appeared remotely.

When you click on the June meeting link you will see that the meeting ran for more than four hours. Don’t slap your forehead and give up thinking you don’t want to troll through four hours of rhetoric to find the people who are attacking your favorite outdoor pursuits every meeting.

It’s easy to find the public participation section, which usually comes up right after the lunch break. Just click on the little red dot on the bottom of the screen and drag it to the right. A notice will pop onto the screen announcing the lunch break. The first item up after that break will be the first person signed up for public participation.

Each person gets three minutes to address the board, but they usually run over a few minutes. Most of them also submit written comments to board members that, if read aloud, would extend well beyond three minutes. The speakers pick elements from their written testimony for their three minutes at the microphone.

You are not going to believe what you hear. Well, maybe you will.

For the June meeting, nine people signed up to address the board; five of whom asked NRB members for help or advice in ending hound hunting and hunting contests.

First was Christina Ciano, who said she is disturbed by what she calls killing contests. She said she holds a great respect and appreciation for the natural world including the mesopredators targeted by these contests. She said killing contests are illegal in 10 states, and should be banned here. She asked the NRB to weigh in.

While the NRB does set policy for the DNR, board members do not direct the agency. The DNR brings potential rule or policy changes to the NRB, where members then give it a thumbs up or thumbs down. The DNR or legislature would have to being a process to ban hunting contests, hound hunting – and more recently apparently frog and turtle races – for an NRB decision.

Marya Bradley also opposes hunting  contests, calling them a sadistic blood sport. She said animals mourn for each other when kin are killed.

Bradley said there is “a scientifically established link researched by the FBI and National Institute of Health” that the abuse of animals leads to the abuse of family members and other humans.

MORE COVERAGE FROM WISCONSIN OUTDOOR NEWS:

Wisconsin DNR seeking user input on plan for state parks

Wisconsin’s 2026 pheasant counts above 5-year average, stocking numbers cut

Wisconsin’s 2026 antlerless quotas very similar to 2025

Linda Hendrix said trailing hounds pursuing bears “exhausts bears to point where can’t tree” and the bears then turn on dogs. She said that’s when sows are separated from cubs, and cubs are at risk of being injured by dogs or become orphaned. She doesn’t like the idea that hound owners train hounds on live wildlife in enclosures or at water races, or that dog owners are reimbursed for dogs killed or injured by wolves.

“Hunters disregard wolf caution areas, even though the DNR makes information available. At the spring hearings there was an attempt to hound on wolves outside of a season,” she said.

(We’ll tackle wolf caution areas another day – not enough room to cover that topic here).

Karin Mahuna described conservation as nothing more than hunters making sure, through the DNR, that there are enough game animals to pursue. She said that vision does not  “align with the majority of the public.” She wondered why Wisconsin allows hound hunting for bears and other animals.

“Hounds packs have attacked people, pets and their livestock,” she said.

Lois Lehman also spoke against contests, but curbed her comments since many of her points had been made by previous speakers.

NRB members do not reply or comment on public participation. They allow the speakers their say, then continue on with the meeting.

Understand that this happens almost every meeting. What I don’t see are sportsmen showing up for public participation to counter some of these views. I think we need a coalition of some sort from which we have three to six sportsmen appear at every NRB meeting to provide some common sense to these topics.

Rare ears on this doe

Reader George Guyant, of Amherst Junction, sent a photo (above) of a doe he sees often on trail camera photos and while he’s out bowhunting. He first saw her last fall.

She’s easily identifiable because of her short ears. Guyant is wondering if anyone might have an idea of how the doe ended up with short ears. My guess is a haybine. Fawns are often victims one way or another of haybines. In this case, the deer was likely a fawn last spring and held tight as the machine passed overhead with just her ears sticking up.

Anyone else have a guess? Email dean@outdoornews.com.