Doe Derby: A Celebration of Antlerless Deer

In modern hunting culture, antlerless deer harvests are often spoken of in sheepish, hushed, or apologetic tones. Hunters who shoot one say they “just” got a doe in many circles. This mentality would be unimaginable to most predators, and to human hunters throughout the vast majority of the time Homo Sapiens have hunted the Earth. And it’s unthinkable on a frigid collection of days in rural Wisconsin in the winter of 2024 as hunters, conservationists, friends, and allies gather for the Fourth Annual Cazenovia Doe Derby, a boisterous celebration of non-antlered whitetails and their pivotal role in conservation, land ethic, and the many joys deer hunting has to offer. 

Hunting should include all types of people, and it should include all sorts of deer, too. Bucks and does need to be killed during hunting season to maintain a healthy  Deer herd ecosystem. This event, part raffle, part party, part conservation initiative, is intended to remind people of that fact. 

In some ways, it’s a quintessential Midwestern deer camp. Conservationist Doug Duren, part owner of the family farm serving as its hub, jests that the picturesque scene on the state’s license plate was modeled after the little white farmhouse, the stoic concrete silos, and the big red barn serving as the Doe Derby’s home base. In other ways, it is something revolutionary: a jubilant celebration of doe hunting. While participants feast on beaver and venison chili, hunt does, swap stories, win coveted prizes, and drink up the camaraderie of the event, they bolster the number of antlerless deer that are shot and increase the number of animals tested for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). 

Freezers are filled. Sick deer are removed from the landscape. State scientists have more data points to help them understand the disease. For raffle winners, it is like Christmas morning. But everyone wins, to some degree. 

The premise is simple: Hunters who shoot a doe in Wisconsin, with any weapon, from September into January, can drop off the head at self-serve kiosks at the Duren Farm in Cazenovia, in La Valle, or in Reedsburg for CWD testing. Anyone who drops off a head gets to enter the Doe Derby’s drawings for a chance to win big prizes. The raffle incentivizes hunters to shoot antlerless deer in a state where many hunters are so fixated on mature bucks that they seem to forget the old saying that you “can’t eat the horns.” Too few does killed means overpopulated deer are currently losing the battle against CWD, an always-fatal prion-based disease that turns their brains to gray porridge and their bodies to macabre sacks of tawny skin and jagged bones. 

This year, there are prizes from Savage, Can-Am, Vortex, MeatEater, First Lite, OnX Hunt, Readfeather Outdoors, CuddeBack Digital, Camp Chef, Decked,  Zero 4 Outdoors and Chris Crafted Custom leather works.

Hunters take part in the Doe Derby Fall through the New Year they remove antlerless deer from] the landscape and enter for a chance to win. Drawings are held in mid-December and early January. 

At the December drawing, which includes hunting expeditions on the Duren farm, a bevy of food, and a chance for several attendees to test Savage’s Axis 2 Pro, 110 Storm, and 110 Trail Hunter Lite, Duren hands out copies of Aldo Leopold’s “A Sand County Almanac.” The book is a foundational text of his land ethic, and he quotes it often, verses from his conservation scripture.

“We’re trying to be an example of what good conservation is,” he explains to people gathered from as far away as Mexico and California for the event. “This is conservation, and hunting should be part of it.” 

The Doe Derby is an offshoot of several initiatives and ideas aimed at getting people involved, including the Sharing the Land initiative, a resuscitation of Leopold’s Riley Game Cooperative. Sharing the Land is structured around four basic tenets: Conservation Ethic, Community, Diversity and Advocacy. While only a couple years old, the initiative has already brought together hundreds of “access seekers” and dozens of private landowners across the United States. Those access seekers have planted shrubs, burned prairies, pulled invasive species, improved timber stands, cleaned and stabilized streambanks, spread native seeds, cleaned trails, hauled feed pails, mended fences, done masonry and carpentry, fought in the battle against CWD, and more. In return for their efforts to improve the landscape, the access seekers get to hunt, fish and forage on the private lands where they invested sweat equity. 

At the Cazenovia Doe Derby’s December drawing, Duren shares stories about what deer hunting was like in Wisconsin in his youth. The gist is that it was very different. Despite nearly all the land being privately owned, open access was the norm back then. People grew up sharing the land. 

“We all hunted together,” Duren explains, gesturing toward his neighbors. 

He vividly remembers the first “No Trespassing” that went up in the area, and how perplexed many people were by it. More signs followed, and now that is the norm. 

Times change. Society and culture can be fickle. Some changes are missteps, and others are part of natural evolutions into something better. But some things persist. Here in a Wisconsin, a row of fat, recently-harvested whitetail does hang in a cold white milkhouse, with stoic siloes and a big red barn standing sentry above, while a CWD testing kiosk fills up with heads to be tested, and Duren announces the winners of prizes by the light of a roaring bonfire that blazes in defiance of a slurry of rain and sleet tumbling from the sky. It is clear that some things remain, like the importance of hunting, collaboration, and the myriad joys the wild world has to offer. Some things are different today, but just as it was in Leopold’s time, picking up a rifle and heading into the woods can still be an act of both celebration and conservation. 

It’s what’s best for the environment. It’s what’s best for the deer. And it’s what’s best for people, too. 

Learn more at https://www.sharingtheland.com/doederby