Deer, bear, elk wreak havoc

LADYSMITH, Wis. — In the north woods of Wisconsin, farmers are facing challenges from wildlife that are damaging crops, and a lack of compensation for those damages.

“This has been a prolonged problem, and it hasn’t gotten any better,” said Mike Robers, a Sawyer County dairy farmer. “It’s continually getting worse. We’ve got to get compensated for our losses because we can’t keep losing that kind of money.”

Robers milks 430 cows with his family on their Exeland dairy farm, raising 850 acres of crops to feed the herd.

Along with Sawyer County grain farmers Dale and Connor Beissel of Winter, Robers hosted a Wildlife Damage Forum Sept. 19 in Ladysmith. They explained the plight farmers in Sawyer and Rusk Counties face dealing with heavy crop damage caused by deer, bear and elk.

Farmers can enroll in Wildlife Damage Abatement and Claims Program said Seth Zesiger, assistant district supervisor the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Wildlife Services. But the program does not make farmers whole.

In 2020, the top seven claims submitted in Rusk and Sawyer Counties totaled $194,449, with $67,919 in damages being paid out.

Recent years have had similar outcomes for farmers in the region. The top three claims in the two counties, filed in 2021 totaled $75,504 with $28,930 paid out; while the top four claims in 2022 totaled $131,271 with $40,000 being reimbursed.

Farmers who chose to participate in the program must meet certain criteria. The must exceed or being likely to exceed $1,000 in crop damages to receive a damage shooting permit. They must exceed a $500 deductible to receive a damage claim. Farms must be open to public hunting. Rented crop land can only be eligible for the program if the land-owner is open to public hunting, which Robers said many are not willing to agree to. If land-owners do not agree, the damage on their property is not counted in overall totals.

“Participants in the damage program are obligated to let hunters on their property for whatever species they want to collect damage claims for,” Zesiger said. “The whole program is funded by hunting license sales. Anytime anyone buys a license, a portion of that money goes to fund this program.”

According to Zesiger, the funding not only funds the positions of those who work with the program, but it also pays for abatement assistance and is applied to crop damage claims.

“The property has to be open to hunters — it’s going to help everybody,” Zesiger said. “If you’re having trouble with deer, have people come in and shoot deer; if you’re having trouble with bear, have people come in and shoot bear.”

According to Robers and Dale Beissel, farmers are capped at $10,000 for crop damage reimbursement, regardless of the extent of the actual damages suffered.

“Most years I don’t go over the cap, but I’m pushing for the guys who do,” Robers said. “If we want to stay in business, we can’t keep eating these kinds of losses. It has to be compensated for. If I were to go downtown and ask any of the business owners if they were willing to donate $15,000 or more each year to charity, how easily could they do that? ... Dale has been having these kinds of losses for over 30 years.”

The charity Robers refers to is feeding the vast population of deer and bear, native to the area, along with the growing elk herd that was introduced into the region.

In Sawyer and Rusk Counties, Highway 27 largely serves as what Beissel refers to as a dividing line between public lands to the east and private land, largely agricultural, to the west. Beissel farms on both sides of the highway.

“It’s like the bears have radar, they know when that corn is ready,” Beissel said. “There is a predominant west wind, they can smell the corn. They migrate to the corn in August and will stay for nearly two months, before going back to the wooded public lands.”

Most years, Beissel said he exceeds the damage cap by at least $40,000.

“Bears aren’t stupid, they want the best part of the field,” Beissel said. “They’ll move through the field testing until they find the area they want to eat at. You’ll see them sitting down — they’ll swipe an armload over to them, eat that; then they’ll move to the next spot and do the same thing.”

While the program provides ag tags for the bear and deer to be hunted as a means of abatement, Robers questions the impact those tags have.

“There really aren’t that many bears killed on crop damage tags,” Robers said. “The bulk are killed in this area, and I push it heavy. We shot 15 bears on my farm each year for three years running.”

While the affected farmers in Sawyer and Rusk Counties push for increased compensation for their lost yields, Robers said he needs the abatement as much as the compensation.

“I need all the crops I grow — every stalk, every kernel — to feed my cows,” Robers said. “I feed high-moisture corn. With compensation, I can buy corn, but it’s likely going to be dry corn and doesn’t fit in our ration. Our herd averaged 105 pounds per cow for the first six months of this year. You don’t mess around with rations when they’re producing like that.”

Robers said that while he does not regularly exceed the reimbursement cap, his tonnage loss is grievous.

“Out of 600 acres of corn I planted this year, they’ll take six or seven,” Robers said. “If you figure you’re getting 150-bushel corn, that’s nearly 1,000 bushels. If you’re getting 30 tons of corn silage, that’s over 200 tons. It adds up fast.”

Robers and Beissel agree they are relieved to only deal with deer and bear damage and have not suffered damage from elk, thus far.

Zesiger said deer and elk damage look similar. The elk go through a field eating everything while deer will eat the tops of the plants off early, stunting growth. When the grain is ripe, the deer will eat that, along with the alfalfa they eat all summer.

Robers and Beissel are looking to legislators to help with the problem

“We need changes in the way the bills are written,” Robers said. “We would like to have language included that at least lets us trap and relocate bears on rented land where the land owner does not want public hunting. ... We could mitigate some of the damage, even if we couldn’t get paid for it.”