MADISON – Summaries of the 2007 deer, black bear and turkey hunting seasons along with breakdowns of firearm related incidents, tribal harvests, CWD zone harvests and turkey harvest by county and zone are now available in the 2007 edition of the Wisconsin Big Game Hunting Summary.

The complete 90-page summary for these species is available in hard copy at most Department of Natural Resources service centers and by request from Jason Fleener, DNR Wildlife Management, WM/6, PO Box 7921, Madison, WI 53707 (608)261-7589 or by e-mail at [jason [dot] fleener [at] wisconsin [dot] gov]. Reports are also available on the Wisconsin Wildlife surveys page of the DNR Web site.

“It was another great year for hunting in Wisconsin,” said Keith Warnke, DNR’s big game ecologist.

Overall, deer hunters had a top notch year posting the second best total deer harvest at 520,416 deer registered (only 2000 is higher at 618,274) and archers posted their best ever season, registering 116,010 deer.

Hunters will have additional opportunity to harvest antlerless deer and continue progress toward deer population goals during the October antlerless only gun season (Oct. 16-19), which is set to resume after a trial two year moratorium in Herd Control units statewide, except in the Central Forest Deer Management Units (DMUs 53, 54A, 55, 56, and 58), according to Warnke.

“Bear hunters also had great success and deer hunters, with expanded opportunity and a huge herd, did very well,” he said.

Black bear hunters registered 2,797 bears, down slightly from the previous year’s harvest of 3,068 in 2006. The four leading counties for bear harvest were Bayfield (255), Price (233), Sawyer (199) and Rusk (193). The report also tallies the number of nuisance bears captured (756) and relocated.

Hunters experienced a good spring wild turkey season in 2007 registering 52,428 birds for a 25.5 percent success ratio. This was up nearly 6,000 over 2006 (46,662 and 23.2 percent).

Fall Wild turkey harvest was down slightly over 2006. Hunters registered 12,010 turkeys in 2007 for an overall success rate of 14.9 percent compared to 12,108 in 2006 and 15.4 percent.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Jason Fleener – (608) 261-7589