The Save Wisconsin Deer Campaign is picking up speed. We have been running ads on Facebook this week with the cash you kindly donated. If you would like to help keep that going, go here: https://savewideerhunting.nationbuilder.com/
Last night Ed Schultz showed his viewers the lugubrious mug of Walker's hand-picked Deer Czar, and explained what might be in store for hunters after the election is safely over. Video below.
I don't know if this has anything to do with the polls tightening, but I don't want to quit now. More below.
The site that wmspringer and baspringer created is attracting a lot of hits. baspinger said:
The Site has literally exploded... We have been shared with on Facebook countless times (on both Wisconsin/New Channel(s)/Anti Walker pages, tweets almost every 30 mins- 1 hr since the ads ran and someone posted it in Craigslist, Reddit, hunting site(s) and eBlast (email Campaign).
At one point we were consider a top tweet (twice!)
We have woken up some other hunters too (fishing and small game). Several visitors are coming from emails to friends/family (most likely).
Just this morning I checked and saw that another site popped up and had ours linked to it and William added a link about 'Walker DNR Appointee Sought to Privatize Trout Streams' to the site today.
Tomorrow there will be a banner on site about the debate that is to happen on May 31st to remind people to watch it (if televised) & help promote it.
All this has been thanks to the efforts of
Magorn, the
Springers,
Slinkerwink,
Charlie Pierce,
Dan Schmidt at Deer & Deer Hunting magazine, and many others who have fanned out on blogs and social media.
The pushback is starting to come from the NRA and their supporters. I'm not giving them links, but the short version is that anyone who doubts the Deer Czar's protestations of high-minded devotion to Doing The Right Thing for Wisconsin is a liar and an effing librul. I am proud to claim that they seem to hate what I wrote. The same people who were cleaning out the ammunition shelves at Wal-Mart just on the rumor that President Obama was going to take away all their guns are more than happy to believe that Scott Walker appointed the Deer Czar to make hunting better for them. How could anyone believe that he might have in mind changing state laws to make public property benefit his benefactors?
One person in a hunting organization said that the real problem with hunting in Wisconsin is people hoarding deer on private land by "baiting," i.e. feeding them to keep them handy for "hunting." Hunters are unhappy that they are not seeing enough deer on public lands and want to blame someone. Walker saw this as a political ploy, to set up the DNR as the incompetent bureaucrats who can't manage deer. But this hunter said he personally went to Iowa to hunt because baiting is illegal here and he wanted to have a chance to get a deer. Paying $450 for an out-of-state Iowa tag is putting your money where your mouth is. The Deer Czar did not address this issue in his hearings (which were conducted after he wrote his preliminary recommendations), and why not? Because he has his own captive deer ranch in Texas and he is all about feeding deer behind high fences, and making money off consulting for people who want to make money off of private hunting. The deer will go for the all-you-can-eat buffet every time, as anyone with a garden in the rural Midwest can testify.
Dan Schmidt wrote this explanation of what he expects:
What does this all mean? My initial reaction, which is one that I predicted when Kroll was named to the state’s deer trustee position, is that his team’s final recommendations — if implemented — will be heavily skewed toward the state’s larger landowners (500+ acres) and folks who own small parcels in areas comprised mostly of private land.
It is also my prediction that the final recommendations (again, if implemented) will do little, if anything, to improve deer herds and deer hunting on Wisconsin’s 5.7 million acres of public land.
Where does this leave the public-land hunter? “It will suck to be you,” said one deer manager who asked to remain anonymous out of fear for his job. “The resources and efforts will go toward improving the private land sector. This is all about turning deer hunting away from the Public Land Doctrine and more toward a European-style of management — like they have in Texas.”
You can
drop a few bucks if you want to help keep the Facebook ads going. It is surprisingly cheap.
Put links on Facebook.
Tweet the SaveWisconsinDeerhunting site.
And if you know any hunters in Wisconsin, for heaven's sake get the word out that Walker is more of a threat to their favorite recreation than the NRA (falsely) claims Barrett is.
Ed Schultz last night http://ed.msnbc.msn.com/.... Yes, that guy with the beard is the Deer Czar.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
4:31 PM PT: Slinkerwink has a diary up asking for help with radio and a video for Youtube. We will use the Facebook ads to drive traffic to Youtube. For the radio ads, we need an authentic Wisconsin voice to do a voiceover. Can you help? http://www.dailykos.com/...
5:16 PM PT: wmspringer has posted an explanation of how we are using your donations. http://www.dailykos.com/...