Pecatonica Valley Leader - Thursday, November 25, 2004

Two landowners and hunters receive first $2500 CWD Spark Incentive payments
Blanchardville’s Kolb is one of the $2000 landowner winners!

Hollandale, Wis. - Landowner and hunter names have been drawn from the Orion Township and Hollandale chronic wasting disease "spark'' areas to receive the first of four $2500 CWD Spark Incentive Program payments. The program was launched this deer hunting season by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and Whitetails Unlimited to recognize landowner and hunter efforts to eliminate CWD within two small clusters of the disease lying on the periphery of the core area of highest CWD prevalence in the western disease eradication zone.

Tony Bomkamp of Muscoda is the landowner and Carey Bomkamp, Black Earth, is the hunter who received the incentive payment from the Orion Township spark. Eugene ''Gene'' Kolb, landowner in Blanchardville, and Eric Mullikin, hunter from Sturtevant, received the payment for a deer that was shot in the Hollandale Spark.

Each landowner will receive $2000 of the total $2500 incentive payment. while the hunters will each receive $500.

"It is our goal to extinguish these small clusters of CWD that we are terming 'sparks' before they have a chance to grow into a larger area of infection. We are so thankful for landowners and hunters who chose to open up their land, take deer, and bring them in for testing in order to help us" said Alan Crossley, CWD Project Leader for the DNR. "We hope that rewarding the $2500 to a landowner and hunter not only provides incentive to open up private land and harvest multiple deer, but also shows our appreciation of these efforts."              

The new Spark Incentive Program will provide four $2500 payments in each spark, spread among four time periods. The first time period ended Oct. 27. The ending dates of the remaining periods are Nov. 28, Jan. 3, and March 31. A random drawing will be held in each spark after the close of each time period. Each deer shot in a spark represents one chance for this drawing. Whitetails Unlimited is cooperating with administering the program and issues the payments.

The Spark Management Strategy
The core area of highest CWD prevalence within the western disease eradication zone (DEZ) is likened to the epicenter of a fire, using a classic forest fire analogy, according to Crossley. Peripheral to that core area are single or small CWD cases which could be likened to sparks that have drifted from the fire.

"When fighting a fire, it is important to continue to suppress the main fire while watching for sparks and extinguishing those sparks before they can ignite a second fire,'' said Crossley.

With the analogy in mind, the DNR is attempting a sparks management strategy in two spark areas within the western DEZ. One centers around a cluster of three CWD positive deer near Hollandale in Iowa County and one positive deer in Orion Township in Richland County. The department has defined each spark area by going out two miles in all directions from the positive deer in each spark. The resulting Hollandale spark is 43 square miles and the Orion Township spark is 25 square miles in size.

For at least the next two years, the DNR will work with landowners and hunters in these sparks to shoot as many deer as possible and have them tested for CWD. Deer shot in the Hollandale spark can be registered and sampled at Countryside Lanes, 1255 CTH F. Deer shot in the Orion Township spark can be registered and sampled in Muscoda at STH 80 Boat Landing on the Wisconsin River.

With landowner permission, DNR sharpshooters are available this year to help reduce deer densities. Department shooting is viewed as supplemental and complimentary to the efforts of landowners and hunters in each spark.

"Landowners and hunters remain the key to whether we succeed or fail in our effort to reduce the deer population, test every adult deer and eradicate CWD. Likewise, the success or failure of the sparks experiment rests in the hands of landowners and hunters," said Crossley.

Over the next few years the department intends to do intensive monitoring to evaluate the success of the sparks management strategy. In addition to testing every adult deer for CWD, the department will do helicopter surveyed weather permitting, to estimate deer populations in the area. Landowners will also be surveys to assess the effects of the department's outreach efforts, the value of the incentive programs in encouraging landowners and hunters to shoot more deer, and the support for the sparks management strategy. If the effort is deemed a success here, it will be implemented in the vicinity of other sparks within the disease eradication zone.

For more information on CWD please visit dnr.wi.gov and click on "Chronic Wasting Disease in Wisconsin" or call l-877-WISC CWD.