50 Relating to: prohibiting the Department of Natural Resources from establishing certain restrictions on hunting antlered deer and regulating the establishment of fall open seasons for hunting deer with firearms.

Date of enactment: November 4, 2011
2011 Senate Bill 75 Date of publication*: November 18, 2011

* Section 991.11, Wisconsin Statutes 2009-10 : Effective date of acts. "Every act and every portion of an act enacted by the legislature over the governor's partial veto which does not expressly prescribe the time when it takes effect shall take effect on the day after its date of publication as designated" by the secretary of state [the date of publication may not be more than 10 working days after the date of enactment].

2011 WISCONSIN ACT 50

An Act to create 29.016 of the statutes; relating to: prohibiting the Department of Natural Resources from establishing certain restrictions on hunting antlered deer and regulating the establishment of fall open seasons for hunting deer with firearms.

The people of the state of Wisconsin, represented in senate and assembly, do enact as follows:

Section 1 . 29.016 of the statutes is created to read:

29.016 Department authority; deer hunting seasons and license restrictions. (1) The department may not do any of the following:

(a) Require a person who holds a license that authorizes the hunting of deer to take an antlerless deer before the person may take the person's first antlered deer under that license.

(b) Except as provided in sub. (2), establish a fall open season for hunting deer with firearms that begins before the Saturday immediately preceding the 4th Thursday in November.

(2) Subsection (1) (b) does not prohibit the department from promulgating a rule that establishes a fall open season for hunting deer with firearms that begins before the Saturday immediately preceding the 4th Thursday in November if any of the following applies:

(a) The department limits the open season to hunting deer by any of the following persons:

1. Persons who are under 16 years of age.

2. Persons who hold a Class A, Class B, or Class C permit under s. 29.193 (2).

3. Persons who are learning to hunt.

(b) The department establishes the fall open season because a fall open season is necessary to control the spread of chronic wasting disease or other disease in deer and if all of the following apply:

1. The rule authorizes the hunting of only antlerless deer.

2. The rule provides for a closing date for the fall open season that is on or before October 15.

3. The rule provides that the rule does not apply beginning 270 days after the effective date of the rule.