Eau Claire (WQOW)- The DNR's deer herd estimates can impact how many deer hunters can shoot come gun-deer season.
"The more accurate that information is, the more accurate your estimate is going to be," explains DNR Spokesman Ed Culhane.
For the next 60 days, the DNR wants your help tracking deer.
The DNR understands this is not an exact number, but more of a way to estimate how many deer are in the wild. That number can actually come in handy come gun deer season when the DNR needs to figure out a quota for hunters. If you do see a deer, mark down the date, location, how many deer and what type of deer you saw into the DNR's online database.
The DNR uses the information to form a ratio of does to fawns, which helps it come up with reproduction trends.
"When we get a large number of observations and work those out, then we can get a fairly good guess or an estimate as to what that ratio is going to be and then that ratio gets plugged into the more complicated math formula that we use for estimates," says Culhane.
If you want to take part in the count and have an email address, you will receive a report from the DNR with everyone's information compiled together.
"If you are going to do this, we want you to be committed to do it for the two-month period," Culhane stresses. "You see a few deer one day and you run back and you file an online observation; but then four days later, you see a doe and then you figure, well, I'm too busy and you don't make that observation; then you are not helping us."
If you would like take part in the count, go to dnr.wi.gov and type "Deer Watch" into the search box. The DNR says numbers can be entered online until September 30th.
