I have vacillated on writing this letter since last October before the deer season. I am writing to the deer hunters of Cook County of which I am one. My job gives me the unique opportunity to drive many miles through our beautiful county. It is very disturbing to watch our deer and moose herds dwindle each year.
In the middle 1990s deer and moose here were very high populations at the same time. Therefore the DNR assumption that deer and moose cannot co-exist is false, because history says they can and did!
In the early 2000s, it was nothing to count 200 deer on one side of Highway 61 every time we drove to Silver Bay for hockey. Our deer herd now is about 10 percent of what it was back then.
It is clear that the DNR is using you the deer hunter to destroy your deer herd by issuing doe tags when the deer population is in peril. Does are the production plant of your deer herd and if more does are harvested your herd of deer will be less next year than it is right now! If you want to continue to hunt deer in Cook County with your kids and grandkids, please self-govern and do not shoot does. If the population falls far enough the wolves and highway will take care of the rest and the deer herd will cease to be viable, huntable.
So why did the DNR give five doe tags last season down by Silver Bay? It is my belief that they are trying make sure deer are eliminated here. Where would deer come from if they are destroyed here? We need every doe we can get alive and having fawns.
And I also have a legal question. If a professional trained manager in Grand Rapids institutes a management plan to wipe out deer in Cook County— knowing that wolves survive on deer, moose and beaver—and puts stress on the wolf population, and a wolf kills a human, can he/she be prosecuted for manslaughter or negligent homicide?
If this management continues we could lose our deer, moose and wolf populations here.
Steve Watson
Grand Marais
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