Tom Bahti

I have become increasingly nervous about the future of white-tailed deer hunting in Wisconsin – and throughout North America, for that matter.
The current fixation on inches of antler, bordering on mania and the absurd, is, in my mind, casting a pall on the entire sport of deer hunting. You need only to look at almost any of specialty deer hunting magazines or turn on one of the “horn porn” deer hunting TV shows or YouTube videos to see and hear constant discussion of G1 and G2 lengths, “shooter bucks,” bucks that have been given names (sorry Christine), “hit lists” of bucks, and detailed discussions of how to keep “your buck” from, heaven forbid, wandering on to the neighbor’s land.

I was fortunate to work as a wildlife biologist during the heyday of Wisconsin’s preeminence in the world of white-tailed deer management.
The passing of some of the legends in what used to be the DNR Forest Wildlife Research Group has made me look back nostalgically at the “good old days,” and to rue even more so the damage that was done to perhaps the premier white-tailed deer management program in the country when Dr. James Kroll was hired by then-Gov. Scott Walker.