Deer Hunters Get To Shoot in State Parks

Catering to key Scott Walker constituencies, the Wisconsin DNR is allowing deer hunters to shoot in some state parks this year, meaning they get to extend their influence and hunting lethality hundreds of yards or more from where they fire their rifles.

To everyone else, the agency says: wear orange out there.

I found this interesting tidbit from the South Carolina DNR about deer-shooting accuracy, which is another way of saying this is not the best time to be out in the woods, even in state parks of which you are a partial owner:

We determined that on this study site, the mean distance of shots taken at deer was 132 yards and that there was a significant difference between shots that resulted in a deer (127 yds.) and those resulting in a miss (150 yds.). 

Overall it required 603 shots to harvest 493 deer resulting in 81.7 percent shooting success. 

So around 20% of those deer-hunting shots missed. How far did they go? These buckets can travel long distances and carry plenty of punch.

Maybe the average distance-to-hit-rate varies in Wisconsin a little from South Carolina, maybe not.

But if you throw in the other 2013 pro-hunter change - - more land opened to deer hunting in relatively more-populated counties - - and it's clear that WI officials are allowing more hunting near more people on more land than in years past.

Risks the DNR is apparently willing to take.