New concept: Airlifting Deer without tranquing

We just received word from the radio that our wonderful WI DNR is going to capture wild deer from a helicopter with nets, airlift them and then radio-collar them! Why? The radio station said it was for purposes of finding out why there's less bucks and when the does are actually giving birth.



Hmmm...they actually think the deer will survive this? Wish I knew where I could film them doing this! If they do miraculously survive the airlift, I think it would great to film and witness the person who plans to remove them from the net. I sure hope if a deer cuts through the net with their hooves any people below have insurance.



Check it out yourself, hope this link will work for you. Amazing! And taxes pay these people to do this. I want my money back!



http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2659302/posts



A phone call to a local deer farm would tell them their late/longer hunting seasons cause both lack of bucks and later fawning! But, hey, that's just called an educated guess off the top of a deer farmer's head!

I think I'll volunteer so I can learn everything about a deer like the DNR



http://dnr.wi.gov/news/DNRNews_article_Lookup.asp?id=1646

Why don't they just hire some deer farmers who know what they are doing with radio telemetry darts and save the deer a bunch of stress and the tax payers a bunch of money! GEEEEEZZZZ!



I wander what that costs?



They use those here in Missouri to catch baiters and count ducks!



I think the WI DNR likes to show off. The CWD debacle was quite the comedy! A very sad comedy but a comedy none the less. Every time I am in a CWD meeting I hear the comment. "Well, at least thanks to Wisconsin, we know what NOT to do!"



Looks like they are stepping up to the plate again!

Sonunds like a bunch of BS to me.

They might have less bucks because of the bright idea to kill all deer during the cwd scare. Lol

I am pretty sure thats the stupidist thing i have ever seen But maybe it will help the economy

As a helicopter pilot I would not want to transport a live undrugged deer. Sounds like a accident waiting to happen. A fellow pilot friend of mine was contracted by the state of Tenn. to shoot pigs out of his helicopter. He got $1350 an hour, take that times 8 hours a day, plus ferry time, you do the math.

Here in OZ, the royal society for the prevention of cruelty to animals is a statutory authority,with the same powers to arrest & prosecute as the police.If I proposed & attempted such a scheme, exposing animals to such" terror",(without LANs),I would expect to be pushed face down on my driveway,fitted with some new bracelets & a big black gun shoved in the back of my head.To have approval for this type of research don't they need approval from an ethics committee,we can't take photos of wildlife for research without ethics committee approval. Cheers Sharkey

These are apparently people who sit at desks and do computer models of things - kind of like those that said our entire wild herd would be devastated by CWD. Despite all their shooting in the CWD zone, there are now more deer there than ever - go figure!!! Apparently CWD wasn't too devastating. The rest of the state has been down in deer population - maybe things like wolves and bears perhaps???? After all, a short time ago DNR admitted their bear numbers were off - that we had TWICE AS MANY as they thought! Wolves have been multiplying like nuts and now they have FINALLY admitted we may have cougars in WI. If this were private company they would have been fired!!

The problem Gary and Jane is that we taxpayers foot the bill but we don't have the ability to fire them. All we seem to be able to do is grab our ankles and say... thank you, can I have some more?

I'm just glad they came up with this plan. I would hate to think the state was maybe going to stop going deeper in debt spending money on crazy ideas. What would we have to keep us warm all winter if we weren't hot under the collar from the way the government spends our taxes?

Now if we could just get everyone in other states to send us a thank you card for the state of WI again leading the way on how NOT to do things

Hunters in our area complain A LOT about how kids are bored to death when parents take them out hunting because they haven't been seeing any deer. I can see where video games would be more fun! DNR would hate to admit they counted farmed deer from the helicopters, miscalculated the herd size or let too many cougars/bears/wolves lose. What's happening is fewer hunters go out in the woods. Our family of four bow and gun hunted for years. This year there was only 2 bow licenses bought and I'm pretty sure it was the last year. Not just because of the lack of deer, because of the DNR's politics.



My former employer (attorney) had a wolf stare her down in her own back yard - the wolf wasn't scared of her at all. She's an animal lover but she said that was SCARY! She called the DNR to warn them that she were a child the wolf wouldn't have been hungry any longer. They said, "It wasn't a wolf, maybe a wild dog." She returned the comment with explaining who she was and that she would be the first to be on the case if a wolf attacks a person/child, she knows it was a wolf. The DNR just simply cannot replace Mother Nature.



Back to the main topic...I can't believe they would transport deer without tranquing but the radio said that. Even if they do, I'm sure we're not the only deer farmers out there that a deer has woke up before they were supposed to. I never thought about the effect of a frantic deer on a helicopter's balance...THAT'S scary!

Roger,



Where do I send the card? I'd really like to send a "Thank You" to them. Missouri has plenty of its own problems with what its doing to our own herd (and that sure helps our preserves) but Wisconsin takes the cake! I bet the preserves are looking pretty good right now up there!

Sam,



Have you considered moving your operation to the Great State of Iowa?????????????????

Just to let you guys know, we had our first case of a wild deer with CWD in SE Minnesota. Check KTTC.com , I'm sure us deer farmers will be blamed for this by the DNR and the Minn. Deer Hunters Assn. This should make it easier to open preserves in Minn. and to ship deer to other states. Minnesota has tested more than 32,000 deer shot since 2002. I'm sure if you looked long enough you could find gold in a fish bowl. The paper said that the DNR CWD Response Team has been deployed. There first step will be to do an aerial survey to see how many deer are in the Pine Island area. They are then going to do sample collections [shootings]. Maybe your Wisc. DNR can come over here and practice netting deer from a helicopter and see if they can keep their death loss under 1% like they claim,[ since they don't have a live test for CWD,yet], would be good practice for them. Gary Olson

Barry,



I would consider moving to IA but most of my clients are from out of state and IA doesn't think much of people from out of state.



While I don't agree with the way Missouri manages the wild herd at least they let anybody hunt who wants to buy a tag



You walked into that one my friend!

first day working for ( insert name of Jurisdiction) DNR .... supervisor walks up to you, hands you an object , you look at it and he says...."Here's your sign"

Check out Utube Extreme Helicopter Animal Capture.

Like I said earlier, if a private company was this incompetent they'd be fired! We wouldn't be continuing to employ and PAY them for this work. We have a new governor and a new DNR secretary as of Jan. 1, hopefully they will shake up this agency.

Guys down here in South Texas and up in the Northern areas we catch both Whitetail and Mule Deer as well as other species, buy means of a Helicopter and Net gun. The deer are blind folded and hog tied, we then place them in carry bags and sling them to a processing location. Yes net gun capture is a stressful form capture but when done correctly and professionally like we do mortality rates are next to zero. On a good day we can catch 60 deer in about 4 - 5 hours. Each season we literally catch between 1500 and 2000 deer. In many situations darting from the ground would takes months and is just not practical. Depending on the terrain darting from the helicopter would be way to slow and would make the cost per hour and per deer extremely expensive. Helicopter net gun capture and slinging deer beneath the helicopter was pioneered in New Zealand over 40 years ago and has proven to be a very effected form of capture.



Here are a few examples of South Texas deer capture.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slCsv2NsaQ4



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDUit-E5Jo8

Capchaman said:

Guys down here in South Texas and up in the Northern areas we catch both Whitetail and Mule Deer as well as other species, buy means of a Helicopter and Net gun. The deer are blind folded and hog tied, we then place them in carry bags and sling them to a processing location. Yes net gun capture is a stressful form capture but when done correctly and professionally like we do mortality rates are next to zero. On a good day we can catch 60 deer in about 4 - 5 hours. Each season we literally catch between 1500 and 2000 deer. In many situations darting from the ground would takes months and is just not practical. Depending on the terrain darting from the helicopter would be way to slow and would make the cost per hour and per deer extremely expensive. Helicopter net gun capture and slinging deer beneath the helicopter was pioneered in New Zealand over 40 years ago and has proven to be a very effected form of capture.



Here are a few examples of South Texas deer capture.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slCsv2NsaQ4



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDUit-E5Jo8

Click to expand...

As I understand it, helicopter capture via net is possible in TX due to the short trees/brush/sage (low rainfall) and would not be nearly as practical where trees grow taller than 15' unless you could push some deer out of the timber and into an open space....