Carol Vande Wall realizes it’s too late to stop the Sporting Heritage Bill and its expansion of hunting and trapping in Wisconsin state parks.
She simply wants to delay its implementation, give residents more time to share their objections with the Natural Resources Board and sway its members to create more hunting-free zones than currently proposed. Toward that goal, the Door County hotel operator has launched an online petition seeking to delay the implementation of Act 168, set to take effect on Jan. 1.
The bill opens all state parks to hunting and trapping, except in areas designated by the Natural Resources Board. The board is set to vote Tuesday on the recommendations presented by DNR staff, a collection of maps showing what areas of state parks would be open to hunting and trapping from Oct. 15 to the Thursday before Memorial Day, and what areas would be off-limits to hunters. Revised maps with the staff recommendations are scheduled to be posted on the DNR website Friday.
Vande Wall owns the Peninsula Park-View hotel, just outside Peninsula State Park, and she would like that popular recreation area kept as safe as possible, without hunters frightening off hikers, bikers and campers.
She also would like parks users to have more time to familiarize themselves with what the Sporting Heritage Bill will mean for them.
“People just don’t really know about it, or they didn’t,” Vande Walle said. “We’re just working hard to get people to know what’s going on.”
To learn more about the potential impacts of the Sporting Heritage Bill, check out this piece by Mike Ivey, in the Cap Times.
