BURNETT COUNTY
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2016 VOL. 55 NO. 5 www.burnettcountysentinel.com $1.00
ELECTION GUIDE: Second of a 3-part series — this week, state legislative races. P 8-10
Nuisance bear hunt zone yields 14 BY STEVE BRIGGS SENTINEL
FILE PHOTO
The black bears were making themselves at home.
GRANTSBURG—A special hunting zone around Grantsburg for nuisance bears resulted in 14 bears harvested during the 2016 bear hunting season. Two of the 14 were taken with vertical bows, one with crossbow and the rest by rifle. All were harvested on private land by the landowner or by a landowner-authorized hunter. None were taken with dogs. The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) office in Eagle River provided the report. In August, APHIS said it set up the special hunting zone “in response to chronic and sustained bear conflicts inside the village.” With help from the DNR and Crex Wildlife Area staff, nuisance bear harvest tags were available to private landowners within a 1.5 mile
Another ATV route approved BY TODD BECKMANN SENTINEL
SIREN—The issue will go to the full Burnett County Board for approval later this week but the county’s Infrastructure Committee voted unanimously to open 1.2 miles of Co. Rd. C from Voyager Campground to Mail Road to ATV traffic. The route, initially requested by the Town of Jackson and signed off on by the Burnett County Sheriff’s Department and the Burnett County Highway Commissioner as safe, was sent back to the town so they could consider viable alternatives. “We are trying to keep people out of Voyager Village as the roads can be quite confusing,” Al Vucicevic, ownMike Hoefs er of Voyager Campground, said by way of defending the request. “County Road C is a straight shot from the campground to Mail Rd.” Mike Hoefs, highway commissioner, concurred with Vucicevic’s opinion. “It’s a straight stretch of road which doesn’t get a lot of traffic,” he opined. Because the Town of Jackson has opened all of its town roads to ATV traffic, the approval will allow campers access to ATV routes in the area. SEE INFRASTRUCTURE, PAGE 7
distance from the village limits for the 2016 bear hunting season, adjacent to and outside the Grantsburg village limits. Tags were free but required the landowner to report any bears harvested. All Wisconsin bear hunting regulations and season dates applied. “This was a pilot project to break the intensity of nuisance bear conflicts that have occurred within the Village,” said Crex Meadows Wildlife Area Supervisor Steve Hoffman. Adding the 14 bears taken during the hunt to the 10 bears trapped and removed from Grantsburg during the 2016 live trap effort means two dozen bears have been removed from Grantsburg village and nearby woods in 2016. The Grantsburg bear problem has been worsening for some time. In 2014, residents on Grantsburg’s
north side reported a jump in bear sightings and bear-related conflicts. The black bears created safety concerns for residents, especially those with young children. The bears established a pathway through woods and yards, tearing down bird feeders, dumping trash containers and coming up onto the decks at some homes. The bears had become so comfortable around the village that they were often seen in daylight, even walking down streets as cars approached. “For some of these bears, Grantsburg is their home,” Hoffman said. The village requested help through the Crex DNR staff, which turned to APHIS. A crew from Cumberland started live-trapping the bears in fall of 2015 with limited SEE BEARS, PAGE 6
You found a what?? BY TODD BECKMANN SENTINEL
DANBURY—Imagine, heading to your favorite spot to do a little fall fishing and you no sooner cast your line when you spy an alligator in the water. Well, not an alligator, per se, but a Caiman, a member of the alligator family. That’s just what happened one day last week. Visitors to Thayer’s Landing on the St. Croix River, just west of Danbury, discovered the reptile. No one is quite sure how the caiman came to be in the water near Thayer’s, but Steve Hoffman, wildlife biologist for the DNR at Crex Meadows, has a theory. “We’ve seen this in other places where pet owners will release an unwanted pet into the outdoors to let it die,” he explained. “That way, they don’t have to watch it die themselves.” With the caiman hailing from Central and South America, preferring 80-plus degree weather, it isn’t hard to imagine what happened. “It couldn’t tolerate the cold weather and died of exposure,” Hoffman continued. “It’s a prime example of irresponsible pet
ownership.” The reptile was dropped at the Webster DNR Ranger Station and they turned it over to the officials at Crex Meadows. “I would have liked to talk with the people who found it to get a little more history of how they discovered it — it could’ve helped piece together the puzzle,” Hoffman said. As it stands, Hoffman believes the caiman was someone’s pet. It got to be too much for that person to handle,. so they released it out by Thayer’s Landing. “We have no idea how long it had been on the loose,” he pointed out. “Judging by what little decay there was, it wasn’t out there very long.” One thing is for certain. “It didn’t swim up the St. Croix River,” he said with a laugh. That the caiman was someone’s pet was an extension of Hoffman’s theory especially given the fact Wisconsin is one of five states which allow residents to keep almost any animal as a pet. In fact, in 2011 a Hudson woman was ticketed for bringing a small pet caiman to the city’s beach on the St. Croix River. SUBMITTED
Caiman
SEE CAIMAN, PAGE 6
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