Well, it looks like the Winnebago County Forest Preserves will continue to use sharpshooters to cull the deer herds. They voted and supposedly a final NO vote to hunting in the forest preserve.

I have said all along, the only way the tax paying hunters in this county will ever get to hunt the forest preserves is to bring lawyers into this matter. The same thing happened in McHenry county. The hunters had to sue before they were allowed to hunt. Yes, they now get to hunt in the conservation districts.

You didn't really think that common sense would be used to debate this issue in our highly conservative county. The votes were already known before the meeting ever started.

As taxpayers, we should have the same rights and snowmobilers, horse back riders, freesbe golf participants, and golfers.

You constantly hear the forest preserve is to preserve not kill wildlife. You can take this stance but you can't have it both ways. How many animals were killed or left homeless when the many golf courses were built and woodlots paved for parking lots? How much prairie grass and wetlands do you see on these golf courses?

Obviously everyone in the forest preserve district is in agreement that the deer herd needs to be reduced. That is why they allow sharpshooters in there.

In Illinois it is illegal to feed the deer right now. The reason, CWD is thought to be transmitted by deer feeding in the same spots. How does the forest preserve cull the herd. They put out big bait piles, shine them at night and shoot them.

So let's put a hypothetical situtation. Big bait pile is out, the hunters get tired and go home. A CWD deer comes in to feed, eats, and leaves. The next day 10 more deer come in and eat off the same pile. Now those 10 may contract CWD. Does this sound like effective way to manage CWD?
It sounds like an effective way to spread CWD.

If anyone that was involved in the McHenry County lawsuit is reading this, contact me or PM me. I would love to hear more about how you managed to get the hunting program established.

This is crazy and is going on all over the country. Yes - even in the west!

People need to pay attention to this :eek:

If anyone that was involved in the McHenry County lawsuit is reading this, contact me or PM me. I would love to hear more about how you managed to get the hunting program established.

Please post any information you get regarding this.

Stand together and make your voice heard:cool:

As far as those sharpshooters go I have it from a good source that they are nothing more than park district employees that can hit a target at 50 yards. All of the hunters that I know can do that with no problem if not some people that don't hunt or shoot regularly, but they carry the title sharpshooter I think just to make the public feel safe. There is a way for the parks to make some money if the would charge a nominal fee, register and certify hunters to hunt in the parks that we pay taxes on. Then there's the fact that all hunters and fishermen pay a tax on all goods for their sport which goes towards conservation, stocking and habitat projects. I'm looking for a way to get this information out to the public, thinking about calling the outdoors sports writer in the Rockford paper Doug Goodman and seeing what he can do or where to go to move this in the right direction

As far as those sharpshooters go I have it from a good source that they are nothing more than park district employees that can hit a target at 50 yards

They shot a garage with a .22 in Helena, MT in December. :D

They are the only ones allowed to kill anything.

This makes me ANGRY to no end. If I could get everyone to do it I would avoid hunting within 5 miles of the poaching areas, which include all forest preserves, Rock Cut, and the people's land that let them poach. Then all of the WN CO Board members who keep us from hunting in the preserves could figure out what to do with the deer herd when it multiplies by 10. The deer herd would increase to numbers that would be absolutely uncontrollable. At that point the WN CO. Board would get the responsibility to govern the forest preserves pulled and the forest preserves would let us hunt like they proposed to do last year. YES THEY MADE AN AWESOME PROPOSAL TO THE "EXECUTIVE COMMITEE" (wn co. board members) TO ALLOW HUNTING and MARYANN AIELLO GOT THE THING TABLED FOR HER TREE HUGGING FRIENDS. The problem with this is that the deer herd would end up suffering because of the over population. I guess we have to ask ourselves if it would be worth it. They are in fact suffering now when they go to the bait piles to commit suicide and the poachers are not there or sleeping. All they can do is get CWD from the other deer that have been slobering all over the corn.