Illinois sharpshooters

So I live in the North eastern most county in Illinois. The county North of Chicago. Lake County has the second largest forest preserve district in the state, 31,000 acres. Only problem is they don't allow hunting. Over the last 10 or 15 years the Forest preserve district has bought a large amount of land that was farmed as crops. Around here there's woodland areas dividing the parcels up or sporadically on the parcels. When these properties were being bought up you could no longer hunt there, but they'd lease it to farmers. Some of the newer parcels that dont have trails through are essentially vacant lots that you cant use. The trail system has been graveled over and can only be used by horses, bikes, and foot traffic. On one section by me they bought a golf course, let it get overgrown, then spent who knows how much cutting all the trees down and re-shaping the land and turning it into "1800's prairie". All the sections of woodland areas have been cut down and prairie grass is in its place. So they themselves have in my opinion destroyed deer habitat.

On to sharpshooters. Rather than let hunters hunt on public land the forest preserve district brings in sharpshooters to cull the herd. This is quoted from the Lake County Forest preserve site. Each winter, qualified sharpshooters lethally remove deer from several preserves under humane conditions. Work occurs at night after the preserves are closed, and all venison is donated to Lake County charities. This is the best management option currently available and is used by agencies nationwide."

So the taxpayers pay sharpshooters to come in, at night. They shoot these deer over piles of corn. Yet baiting is illegal. As is the obvious of hunting at night. It's become increasingly difficult around these parts to have a place to hunt. Land is either being sold to developers or the forest preserve.

Is it me or does this suck?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-forest-preserves-remove-trees-met-20150414-story.html
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-forest-preserves-sidebar-met-20150414-story.html

And I bet they are using a rifle of sorts which is also not legal for the rest of the general public!! if I were you just move across the state line into racine or Kenosha counties!!!

Being in the state that its in, I'm not surprised.
What could be an invaluable resource to the state and its citizens Isn't being utilized and is being abused by the state. I'de imagine that selling permits to hunt these areas could possibly bolster that state budget issues as well and could further help fish and game management.
MOVE
or start a group of likeminded people willing to work towards the cause of open public lands.

matthausarchery said:

Being in the state that its in, I'm not surprised.
What could be an invaluable resource to the state and its citizens Isn't being utilized and is being abused by the state. I'de imagine that selling permits to hunt these areas could possibly bolster that state budget issues as well and could further help fish and game management.
MOVE
or start a group of likeminded people willing to work towards the cause of open public lands.

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I wish i could move but the family business is kind of entrenched here. Illinois just passed its first budget in 3 years. My property taxes just went up 65%. Had it appraised at 260 last september. Assesor says 340. At that price my property taxes are 11,000 bucks.

The county to the west allows hunting on forest preserve property, you just have to be able to hit a paper plate 3 out of 4 times at 20 yards. And yes, they are using rifles. In lake county it's archery only. Not even a muzzleloader.

Luckily for me, I have a few farmers as customers. Whenever they need welding work it's pro bono. But hey, got anything good???

I thought this thread was going to be about the counties in the CWD zones. Same thing: rifles, bait, sharpshooters, etc. You also forgot to mention IL just raised personal income tax by 32%. My property tax went up $1700 this year to $8862 a year. People always say "just move" but its never that easy. At least the IDNR is managing the deer herd correctly....not.....can you believe the ONLY management tool they use for whitetail deer is solely based on the number of deer killed on the highway?

buckbull said:

.can you believe the ONLY management tool they use for whitetail deer is solely based on the number of deer killed on the highway?

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I do understand your frustration. I see it often on various social media sites. I have to ask though, what would you propose they use for their numbers? I don't think that the state is perfect mind you, but I feel we need to remember that management of wildlife is based on all parties involved. That includes insurance companies and farmers. In fact, I'd say that DNR does a solid job of managing herds in the face of those two lobbies.

buckbull said:

I thought this thread was going to be about the counties in the CWD zones. Same thing: rifles, bait, sharpshooters, etc. You also forgot to mention IL just raised personal income tax by 32%. My property tax went up $1700 this year to $8862 a year. People always say "just move" but its never that easy. At least the IDNR is managing the deer herd correctly....not.....can you believe the ONLY management tool they use for whitetail deer is solely based on the number of deer killed on the highway?

Click to expand...

My property taxes went up 65% this year. Granted I have 2 houses on 5 acres and mine is just completed. But still. Mine went from 3800 to 6600 this year to what looks like 10,500-11,000 next year.

The DNR does ok managing the herd and they do use sharpshooters to kill for CWD...by baiting...which helps transmit CWD. I personally don't think CWD is an issue. But yes, the sharpshooter CWD program is also insurance driven. Since the program started, in my county alone car hits went from 500 to 200. So how many deer did you really cull to make such a drastic decrease?

My problem with the sharpshooter is that they're allowed to come in and kill in a way that is unethical. Made necessary by the acquisition of land formerly hunted and destruction of habitat you have more deer with less habitat. So why not start a program that allows hunters on preserve land rather than sharpshooters killing over bait, at night on land no on else can hunt on.

That is not the "best" method. I would be thrilled if they allowed x amount of hunters into each area. Tree Stand only with the location of a stand approved by a conservation officer. Lots of people would pay money to hunt on our preserve land that we've already paid for but if were not runner or a horseback rider is pretty much useless. No camping, no atv trail system, and going off trail is kind of frowned upon. Some preserves you can't even go on. Would be nice if the public could use public land.

I'd say it's a consequence of the progressive environmentalism and disfunction of liberal states.

God bless but I don't see any good solution with the idiotic politics you have.

Did not realize the counties/state were putting that much money and effort into restoring the native prairie in that part of IL. Be interesting to see how that pans out long term. Much of early research into the ecology of tall grass prairie came out of the Chicago area as there was still prairie around back in the day to study. Lack of fire has allowed those woodlots to happen. Prairie can and does support whitetails, so I'd say that not all the deer habitat is "lost"...

I honestly think Lake county has some great habitat they have created based on my rides along the Des Plaines river trail. All of these county forest preserves are fairly proactive in habitat management which cannot be said for IDNR where they can't afford to put diesel in their tractors and pumps. Sure a lot of the county and city forest preserves don't allow hunting, but I would almost rather the habitat thrive versus huntable DNR properties continue to degrade in value. I'm not sure which organization runs it but Orland Grassland is a very proactively managed piece of ground in the middle of the south suburbs that has great seasonal wetlands and whitetail habitat.

Will County just had a deer sharpshooter sign up in June for their forest preserves; they at least don't pay for their culling programs. McHenry county actually has a pretty good hunting program. IDNR is an underfunded dumpster fire.

Cook county forest preserves have some amazing rules beyond not allowing hunting:

Permitted at certain waterbodies:*
Canoes and Kayaks
Non-gasoline powered watercraft (of either traditional construction, or multi-chambered inflatables with a factory installed floor and hull identification number, any gas motors must be removed)
Radio-controlled boats
Floatplanes
Rowboats
Sailboats

Prohibited at all waterbodies:
Any gasoline-powered boats
Flotation devices—including inner-tubes, fly-fishing float-tubes or pontoons, sail-surf boards, stand up paddle boards (SUPs), towables or inflatable pool toys, lounges or rafts.
*see specific restrictions for each location

Despite the fact I think not allowing some hunting on forest preserve lands is a huge natural resources drain both on unused available local venison protein and gas saved to hunt further out, I don't think its unreasonable given the outdoor prowess of the average Chicagoland dweller. How many people are afraid of coyotes in the city and suburbs? A ton of them. I've seen brochures in parks and cities trying to educate people on the basic behaviors of coyotes. How many people from Chicago go out to starved rock every year and get hurt requiring search and rescue? Largely its a culture lacking outdoor experiences.

Within the city ironically there are a lot of people who take their outdoor recreation very seriously, but have a very jet set mentality of traveling all over the country and world to do activities. I can show you plenty of mountain bikers, mountaineers, skiier's, scuba, ultra runners who live in downtown Chicago yet fly to Colorado, Belize, Utah and Iceland to do their activities and races. They just happen to be in careers that require they live in a world city and they get out whenever they can.

IlliniFIre said:

I do understand your frustration. I see it often on various social media sites. I have to ask though, what would you propose they use for their numbers? I don't think that the state is perfect mind you, but I feel we need to remember that management of wildlife is based on all parties involved. That includes insurance companies and farmers. In fact, I'd say that DNR does a solid job of managing herds in the face of those two lobbies.

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Not saying DVA's shouldn't be used, saying they should NOT be the only figures used. It would be nice if they used harvest numbers as well. Also, there were widespread EHD die offs in 2007 and 2013 and those were not factored into permit numbers. Bow permits are issued statewide so we have ~60,000 killed every year and the state doesn't know where they were killed until after they are checked in. The JDTF set up parameters with all stakeholders involved (farm bureau, insurance, hunters, etc) and agreed upon a 14% reduction in the deer herd. After counties achieved the 14% decrease in DVA's the were not removed late doe only season. Some counties experienced 20% plus decreases without being removed from the late season. The excuse hunters were given is that 1 year may be an anomaly, and the state preferred multiple years showing at least a 14% reduction. That was not agreed upon during the JDTF meetings that setup the current management. Hunters were lied too.

buckbull said:

Not saying DVA's shouldn't be used, saying they should NOT be the only figures used. It would be nice if they used harvest numbers as well. Also, there were widespread EHD die offs in 2007 and 2013 and those were not factored into permit numbers. Bow permits are issued statewide so we have ~60,000 killed every year and the state doesn't know where they were killed until after they are checked in. The JDTF set up parameters with all stakeholders involved (farm bureau, insurance, hunters, etc) and agreed upon a 14% reduction in the deer herd. After counties achieved the 14% decrease in DVA's the were not removed late doe only season. Some counties experienced 20% plus decreases without being removed from the late season. The excuse hunters were given is that 1 year may be an anomaly, and the state preferred multiple years showing at least a 14% reduction. That was not agreed upon during the JDTF meetings that setup the current management. Hunters were lied too.

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Illinois quota based firearm tag system coupled with OTC bow tags for residents is definitely a big contradiction. The lottery is unnecessarily complicated and poorly executed. Private land tags are basically a given while they are issuing way too many tags for public properties and tag numbers aren't dynamic. I once filed a FOIA about the deer lottery trying to get draw odds for public and private areas and the state wasn't able to find that query in their black and green screen 1980's era computer program.

Big deer in the Chicago preserves if your willing to poach like this guy.

http://heartlandoutdoors.com/bigbucks/story/chris_kiernans_37_pointer/

buckbull said:

Big deer in the Chicago preserves if your willing to poach like this guy.

http://heartlandoutdoors.com/bigbucks/story/chris_kiernans_37_pointer/

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Poach and trespass. I've seen and heard from a lot of guys locally that kill big animals in less than ideal ways. Be it trespassing, or 2nd buck in the day, or else wise. DVA should absolutely be factored into things. My issue is we have all this public land for a forest preserve that were turning into prairie and not allowed to hunt. Yet, someone else is not only allowed...but being paid to hunt using methods I completely disagree with. At night, rifle, bait. In Lake County their is no firearm season. And they have no other idea how to maintain the herd? How about opening up some of that 31,000 acres?

I am aware that prairie is still very viable habitat for deer. I suppose it's up for debate which would hold more, prairie vs woodland. In name the forest preserve preserves forest. Yet theyre cutting it down. I'm all in favor of removing non native species. But they absolutely leveled an area just down the road from me. Everyone wants to be green and reduce their carbon footprint. I get thinning things out, but what they've done seems incredibly contradictory. And a lot of these preserves if there's no graveled trails on you can't use them...for anything.

They had similar mgmt practices when I lived in suburbs of Pittsburgh. Initially they opened up hunting to a "group" of bowhunters. In order to hunt you had to be a "member" of this particular organization that I assume did some due diligence in regards to who they allowed to join(background checks or archery proficiency tests, etc...). The bow hunting groups were never able to reduce numbers enough to have any significant impact. After a few years they brought in the sharpshooters, who were able to set up in public parks(playgrounds and shit) where a hunter would never be allowed to hunt. Same deal, shooting over bait sites, at night, with suppressed rifles. Far more effective than the hunters, but it was clear that the powers at be were not willing to let every swinging dick with a bow take to the township lands to hunt. Goes to show again that the slob hunters among us reflect poorly on the group.

Illinois sucks when it comes to public land. Do some research and I'm sure you'll find the company that does the culling has ties to some big city politician.

We have a forest preserve here on the other side of the state too. It seems to me that it is a ridiculous idea that the state should create a "preserve" for trees. A place where you can hike, camp, fish, or whatever else you want to do...as long as you don't hunt or chop down a tree.

On a positive note, city hunting is slowly gaining ground. A couple of local cities are allowing bow hunting for deer inside city limits.