Free Republic

Steve Mohr, a longtime Lancaster County sportsman, recalled taking a call earlier this season — a fellow hunter was on the line, concerned about recent reports that white-tailed deer had tested positive for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. “He wanted to know what to do,” Mohr said Thursday, explaining the hunter was unsure if he should go out and attempt to bag a buck this year. The story, Mohr said, illustrates the confusion that exists in the county's hunting community following recent news that a favorite local game species may carry the virus. “Right now the hunters are having the...

Driving a well-used pickup truck with his tree-climbing dog “Cory” in the bed, David Bamberger wheels out of a picturesque field up slippery limestone scrabble. The day is a Hill County idyll, with one tour-jarring revelation. As we climb a small rise, an elevated deer blind comes into view. Bamberger’s displeasure is obvious. Nodding back down the hill toward a winch not more than 100 yards away that will hold a deer feeder when hunting season opens in November, he nearly spits. “You might as well be at a shooting range.” Yet this is where every one of his “high-dollar”...

A place called the eradication zone, lying about 40 miles west of Madison, Wis., covers some 411 square miles. There thousands of white-tailed deer live--or rather, used to live. Last year the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources instituted special hunting periods to try to wipe out upward of 18,000 deer. During the fall, dead deer were taken to registration areas, where state employees in protective suits and gloves dragged carcasses from pickup trucks and lifted them onto plastic-covered picnic tables. With hacksaws, they severed the heads, double-bagged them and sent them for testing; the bodies themselves were incinerated. The Dairy...