2025 WCC Spring Hearing Results

For anyone anxiously checking the WCC’s Spring Hearing Results page this year, it was an awful lot of clicking and waiting—the results were not put up until May 15, a full month after the online voting ended. Most people had lost interest by then and moved on.

A comment on the WCC’s Facebook page attributed the slow response to a vacant WCC liaison position. It was also mentioned that some of the paper ballots from the in-person county meetings, which are tabulated off-site and mailed to Madison, “took a couple weeks to arrive.”

The online voting, however, was done through a computer survey program, which means those results should have been tallied as they were made. This is all kind of ironic, since one of the reasons online voting was begun in 2019 was to make the process easier and faster.

Now here’s the real kicker: even though the public didn’t know the results, the WCC county delegates supposedly used the results at their Annual Convention May 9-10 in Oshkosh to decide which proposals they would recommend to the DNR Board.

This means the WCC got the results a week before anyone else–or else they didn’t actually use the results in their decision making. Either way, there was no chance for public discussion prior to the convention.

More problems

Here’s the other kicker:  several of the “WCC Positions“ listed on the results page do not match the hearing results.  Banning lead shot and sinkers passed by a 3-2 margin (3660-2630), yet the WCC rejected the proposal.

The WCC did the same thing with a proposal to assist farmers with nonlethal predator programs (3553-2012) and offering a crane stamp to compensate farmers for crane damage on crops (4031-1775).

The whole point of the hearing is to provide input for decision making by the WCC and DNR. The fact that the WCC took positions totally opposite public opinion indicates that may not be the case.

In 2000, a highly controversial proposal to hunt mourning doves attracted 29,938 voters (5000-7000 was a more normal turnout at the time). Despite most of the attendees voting against the hunting proposal, the DNR went ahead and approved a hunting season anyway. Which brings up the question: How much say does the public really have in any of these issues?

If nothing else, the problems with this year’s survey show that the WCC needs to tweak their “machinery” to maintain any credibility with the public.

A look at the results

A little over 9000 people filled out this year’s WCC Spring Hearing Questionnaire. Participants could vote yes, no, or no opinion on natural resource proposals submitted by the DNR, the WCC (Wisconsin Conservation Congress), and the public.

Results of the hearing are now available in two online documents: “Statewide Results,” which lists totals for each of the Spring Hearing’s 74 proposals, and “Results by County,” which shows how each county voted on each proposal.

The Statewide Results are further broken down to show votes from “All Participants” (9276) and votes from just “Wisconsin Residents” (9080).

The Statewide page also shows overall county results (pass, fail, tie) and the “WCC Position” on each issue (whether the WCC county delegates voted to advance the proposal to the DNR Board).

It is interesting that by the time the public saw the results, the WCC had already made their decisions on which proposals to advance.

Nonresident votes

Although out of state residents are allowed to vote in the Spring Hearing, only 196 nonresidents did so this year.

What turned out to be a real debacle for nonresident voters was that they could sign in to start the online survey, but could not access the ballot questions until they clicked a Wisconsin county of residence. There was no option for nonresidents and the program would not let them proceed without selecting an answer.

It turned out this was a glitch in the survey program and DNR personnel instructed nonresidents to just pick a Wisconsin county “where they recreate” to continue with the survey. This was a major program error which probably prevented most nonresidents from voting–not to mention skewing the county numbers.

The drop in nonresident numbers is most obvious when looking at totals from previous years: 1,516 nonresidents took part in the 2024 Spring Hearing (out of 18,802 participants) and 775 took part in 2023 (out of 11,556 participants).

The DNR does plan to correct the survey program for next year, but did not make any changes for this year.

There is some legitimate question as to why nonresidents should have any input in Wisconsin resource policies. Allowing out of state hunters (and even Wisconsin hunters) to have a say in hunting issues is kind of like having the foxes vote on whether to raid the chicken house.

On the flip side, the opinions of nonresident voters who just enjoy seeing Wisconsin’s wildlife can be very important for tourist and wildlife-related issues.

The white deer issue

Questions 69-73 on this year’s Spring Hearing ballot asked participants if they would “support legalizing the harvest of white deer” in each of five counties: Jefferson, Marathon, Portage, Winnebago, and Wood.

Using the vote totals for all five counties, the answers were: 49% yes, 32% no, and 19% no opinion. Although 49% of voters voted in favor of legalizing hunting white deer in those counties, 51% of voters (slightly over half) were against the proposal or undecided on the issue.

It is worth noting that virtually all of the WCC proposals this year passed with little to no opposition in 70 or more of Wisconsin’s 72 counties. Only a handful of proposals received a large number of no votes, and the white deer issue was one of them. This shows that many hunters still oppose a white deer hunt.

In 2021 a proposal to allow hunting white deer statewide failed by a close margin. What was different about this year’s proposal was that it targeted only five counties. These counties have higher white deer numbers, but it was also likely a strategy by proponents to gain more voter approval…and this may have been what happened. 

County results

The “County Results” page has two sections: one showing how Wisconsin residents voted in each county, and one showing how participants voted in all the counties where they “recreated” (hunted, camped, vacationed, etc.).

Using just the results for the Wood County proposal, counties where the majority of residents voted against hunting white deer were Ashland, Bayfield, Burnett (tie), Dane, Green, Iron, Lafayette, Marquette, Menominee, Milwaukee, Oneida, Ozaukee, Rusk, Sauk, Vilas, Washburn, and Waukesha.

Vilas County was the most strongly opposed to the hunting proposal (34 yes-111 no). Vilas also has a population of white deer, but values its four-legged resources and promotes them as a tourist draw.

Wood County voters, conversely, approved legalizing hunting white deer in their own county by the largest margin (439-46). It is important to keep in mind, though, that the 439 people who voted yes to hunting may not even remotely represent the 74,000 other people who live in the county.

In general, it is the northern (more tourist-oriented) counties and the southern/southeastern (more populated) counties that tended to vote against the white deer proposal. The central counties continue to be the most pro-hunting.

The “recreate” vote

Because voters could choose multiple counties where they “recreate,” the number totals for the recreate vote are considerably higher than for just the resident vote. It also added additional counties who opposed hunting.

When totals were compared using votes from all the people who “recreate” in Wood County, even more counties were against a white deer hunting proposal: Columbia, Door, Douglas, Jefferson, Kenosha, Pepin, Rock, Sheboygan, Walworth, and Washington.

Even though Wood, Portage, and Marathon counties had a large majority yes vote, the other counties where the hunting was proposed (Winnebago and Jefferson) had smaller differences. Winnebago had closer numbers for the “recreate” vote (178-142), while Jefferson barely took the “resident” vote (64-51) and lost the “recreate” vote (126-141).

Interestingly, all the votes for Wood County (yes, no, and no opinion) added up to only 6,410. If 9,276 participants took part in this spring’s survey, where are the other 2,866 votes? (Another glitch?)

Granted, people using the in-person paper ballot could have skipped over questions, but the online survey would not let you proceed unless you checked one of the answers. Marathon, Portage, Winnebago, and Wood had similar vote totals and missing numbers.

What’s causing the increased pro-hunting vote?

CDACS (County Deer Advisory Councils), which were established in Wisconsin in 2014 to provide local management recommendations to the DNR, have been strong advocates for white deer hunting in Wisconsin’s central counties.

Pro-hunting blogs and organizations have very likely also been actively networking to increase the hunting vote. Stories on the internet and in outdoor magazines continue to promote white deer as trophies.

The most influential factor in the increased hunting vote may have been the paragraph introducing the five-county proposal.

Proponents, in an unchallenged statement, declared there were “significant populations” of white deer, their numbers “continue to grow,” and “most deer that (landowners) see are white deer.”

To uninformed voters, this made it sound like there are white deer all over the landscape, they’re plaguing urban shrubs, they’re taking over the herd, and a hunt is justified. Oh yes, and hunters are missing harvest opportunities (as if there are no brown deer around).

Where are the studies though? Where are the numbers? Informal surveys (Snapshot-2019 and DNR-2020) show very few white deer in these counties. If white deer were a species, they would be endangered.

Pine martens, for example, are thought to number between 500-1000 individuals in Wisconsin–there may not even be that many white deer in the entire state.

Then there was the wording of the hunting proposal: Would you “support legalizing the harvest of white deer.” Harvesting may be standard hunting terminology, but it absolutely made the white deer sound as ordinary and common as a field of corn.

Spring hearing takeaway

There seems to be a growing number of hunters, particularly in the central Wisconsin counties of Portage, Marathon, and Wood that are in favor of legalizing the hunting of white deer.

Whether there are actually enough white deer in any counties to allow a hunt has in no way been determined and is extremely doubtful.

Statistically, the number of Spring Hearing participants represents a very small sample size (only about 9000 out of a state population of nearly 6 million).

The Spring Hearing votes in no way represent the vast majority of Wisconsin residents nor the countless people who visit the state. Even with so many hunters involved in the voting, there are still many hunters who strongly oppose hunting white deer.

A look at the bigger picture is needed here.  Even if there were a fair number of white deer in the central counties, hunting would wipe them out.  The real possiblity also exists that legalizing hunting in even one county could pave the way for statewide hunting.

There are thousands of people who would absolutely enjoy seeing these deer.  It is counterintuitive to want to destroy something that is so beautiful and so special.

The 2025 WCC ballot question on white deer should have read:  Do you support promoting the white deer as a tourist draw and valuable Wisconsin resource?  And the answer is, of course, YES!

What’s next?

Wisconsin is now in its 85th year of white deer protection, but the state is never more than one rule away from having that protection removed.  Board members need to know that the majority of Wisconsin residents value their white deer and want to keep them protected.