Hunting: DNR hopes to lease more hunting land

[Go Big Red!]

Hunting: DNR hopes to lease more hunting land

By Kevin Naze • For Wisconsinoutdoorfun.com • February 24, 2011

If all goes well, the DNR hopes to sign up more landowners this spring to leases allowing public hunting. The state received a federal grant for $936,040 to use to purchase access leases. The state hopes to quadruple the current 16,000 acres it leases over the next three years.

Four target areas have been identified, mostly in central and southern Wisconsin but also in Brown, Outagamie, Shawano, Calumet and Winnebago counties.

# There was a 3.6 percent rise in paid hunting license holders in the U.S. in 2009, the most recent data available. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported 14,974,534 paid license holders, the largest figure in seven years and an increase of more than a half-million over 2008.

# This is the last weekend for hunting cottontail rabbits. Coyote season remains open, and some game farms continue to offer pheasant hunts.