The heads of Assembly and Senate committees studying the ban said they would try to offer a compromise -- maybe as early as next week -- because the proposal as submitted by the DNR is too sweeping to be approved. Legislators can ask the DNR board to rewrite the ban and, if the agency refuses, lawmakers can keep it from becoming law.

At an emotional seven-hour Capitol hearing, DNR and state agriculture department officials said the potential threat that chronic wasting disease poses to the white-tailed deer herd is so great that feeding and baiting must be banned to stop deer from congregating and spreading the disease. The committees did not vote on the proposed ban Wednesday.

"We consider the whole state herd a herd at risk," said DNR official Tom Hauge, who said efforts to contain the disease must be expanded beyond the eradication zone near Mount Horeb. "We're in a state of transition. We probably will be for three to five years."

Added state agriculture department veterinarian Shelby Molina: "We really don't know for sure what the outside boundaries of the infected areas are. We have a chance of getting rid" of the disease by limiting baiting and feeding so infected deer don't transmit it to healthy animals.

DNR's battle plan

The DNR last year adopted a set of emergency rules that imposed a statewide ban on baiting and feeding and created the eradication zone southwest of Mount Horeb. The DNR wants to kill as many deer as possible in that zone to wipe out the fatal brain disease.

So far, 207 wild deer in Wisconsin have tested positive for CWD, all in or near the eradication zone.

The temporary baiting and feeding ban expired April 30, and the Natural Resources Board last month voted to enact a new set of rules to replace the old package. The rules, which would go into effect Sept. 1, include reinstating the baiting and feeding ban through June 2004 and more than doubling the size of the 411-square-mile eradication zone.

The rules package needs approval by both the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee and the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources before it can take effect.

But opponents of the ban lined up Wednesday to accuse state agencies of overstating the risk posed by the disease. They also said no one knows for sure how it spreads and that the now-lapsed emergency rule that banned baiting and feeding crippled sales at hundreds of small businesses.

"If you like your jobs, think about it," hunter and business executive Louis A. Arbs of Eau Claire warned legislators. He said 20,000 opponents of the proposed ban on baiting and feeding have signed petitions against it so far, and "I can get 100,000 if we need them."

"We don't have sickly deer falling all over and dying," said Pat Rantala, who said her family's Iron River feed mill lost $5,000 in winter feed sales. If the ban on feeding and baiting is restored, she added, her business will be forced into bankruptcy this fall.

Lawmakers divided

Legislators were split by the threat of chronic wasting disease and whether the DNR's proposed ban on feeding and baiting is needed.

"We're going to have to move some type of compromise," said Sen. Neal Kedzie (R-Elkhorn), who called the ban the most emotional issue the Legislature has debated since a proposed hunting season on mourning doves.

"We all represent people on both sides of the issue," said Kedzie, chairman of the Senate's Natural Resources Committee.

But the DNR's proposed statewide ban can't be approved "in its present form," he added.

Kedzie said e-mails, calls and other contacts to his office are split almost equally on the proposed ban, with residents of northern Wisconsin largely against it and many southern Wisconsin residents supporting the ban.

Baiting and feeding are more popular in northern Wisconsin. Until emergency rules last year stopped it, large quantities of corn and other food were set out in the winter for viewing deer, and before hunting season to draw them in for a good shot.

Rep. DuWayne Johnsrud (R-Eastman), chairman of the Assembly natural resources committee, said he supports the proposed ban -- a stance that has led to him getting death threats and threats of physical violence, and has stirred talk of recalling him from office.

Johnsrud said he will work with Kedzie on a possible compromise that could be voted on next week.

Johnsrud defended the ban: "We know it's going to collapse the deer herd if it continues at the rate it's going. Five years down the road, we're going to just kick ourselves" for not banning deer feeding and baiting statewide, he predicted.

Johnsrud outlined one possible compromise:

-- Allowing hunters to bait deer north of state Highway 10, but banning the practice in the rest of the state.

-- Limiting the amount of deer feed that could put out.

Deer feeding is now a "big business," with some individuals putting out 600 or 700 pounds of corn at a time to attract deer, Johnsrud said.

Because chronic wasting disease has not been found in northwestern Wisconsin, Rep. Mary Williams (R-Medford) said residents of that part of the state should get "some kind of relief from the ban."

Williams also was not impressed by studies suggesting that the disease is spread through saliva and deer waste. "There seems to be an awful lot of 'maybes' connected with this," she said.

Several individuals who testified before the two committees Wednesday said the temporary ban on feeding and baiting had badly hurt their businesses. Mark Hagedorn said the Shell Lake Cooperative that he belongs to had a $300,000 drop in gross sales, and lost $100,000 in profits because of the ban.

But retired deer biologist Keith McCaffery, of Rhinelander, said the proposed statewide ban on feeding and baiting must be enacted.

"CWD is a big deal and it would be a disaster if it became further established," McCaffery said. "This is not a DNR plot."

PROPOSED DEER RULES

Two legislative committees are reviewing rules proposed by the state Natural Resources Board to help eradicate chronic wasting disease from the state's deer herd. The new rules would:

-- Reinstate the ban on feeding and baiting deer statewide through June 2004.

-- Expand the southern Wisconsin eradication zone, where wildlife experts want all the deer killed, from 411 square miles to more than twice that.

-- Allow the DNR to use aircraft for shooting deer or driving deer in the eradication zone from Dec. 1 to April 15. Landowners could shoot deer from tractors.

-- Open the gun hunting season in the eradication zone on the Thursday nearest Oct. 27 and close the season Jan. 3. The archery hunt begins on the Saturday nearest Sept. 15 and closes Jan. 3.