ALMA, Wis. - The white-tailed deer is a political animal in the truest sense of the word.

And the politics of venison converged Wednesday night in Alma when 200 people and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist Dave Linderud talked about managing the state's most controversial critter.

Based on Wednesday's nearly three-hour session, it's an imperfect science, and not everyone is happy. This fall, Linderud expects 58 deer on each square mile of deer range. The DNR goal is 26, with 15 going into winter.

"There is almost no way a traditional season will get it down to within 20 percent of the goal," Linderud said.

To attain the goal, hunters this fall would need to kill 9,600 antlerless deer in Unit 61. That means adding extra hunting periods called T-zones to kill more antlerless deer, he said. If this fails to bring the herd down the next two years, hunters would face an "earn-a-buck" rule in 2004 - where they have to shoot a doe before they can shoot a buck. And that bothers some hunters.

"A lot of guys would shoot their dogs to earn a buck," said Brian Kronstedt of Wisconsin Rapids. He and his brother, Keith Kronstedt, own hunting land and disagree with the DNR's deer goals. They believe there is one buck for every doe, not one buck to three does that biologists estimate.

"You basically would have to shoot all the does off your property to shoot a buck," Keith Kronstedt said. "At 15 deer per square mile, we're going to have some pretty unhappy hunters. The earn-a-buck thing kind of scares me."

Linderud, who has managed Unit 61's deer for more than 20 years, said that in 1970, hunters killed 3,200 deer in Buffalo County. Today, twice that many are killed.

"If you're a deer hunter, these are the good old days."

He said trying to "sandwich everything into a nine-day season" isn't a realistic way to get hunters to shoot enough deer. Some want a higher goal for a year or two to avoid special seasons. But Linderud warned, "A higher goal may keep you out of a T-zone for a year, but without this check-and-balance, it will come sooner or later."

Mark Noll, a Wisconsin Conservation Congress delegate and farmer from Alma, said: "I have no problem with the DNR's figures.

"That would be the stupidest thing to do, to raise the goals," Noll said. "The herd would just blow up out of control. That would be ridiculous."

For Linderud, managing deer has become a social science. He can set goals, but getting hunters to use the permits and getting landowners to allow hunters on their property is out of his hands.

"Land ownership is changing the whole dynamic of deer hunting," Linderud said.

But if the deer herd was as low as some claim, then eventually the number killed each fall would noticeably drop.

"We've never come close to running out," Linderud said. "Last year was one of the best years we've had in Unit 61."

T-zone antlerless hunts are scheduled for Oct. 24-27 and Dec. 12-15. The regular hunt is slated for Nov. 23 through Dec. 1. The public can influence decisions at spring fish and wildlife rule hearings, scheduled for 7 p.m. April 8 in every Wisconsin county, with hearings in Alma, Whitehall and Pepin.

The intense politics of deer may be strongly linked to many hunter's obsessions for bucks with antlers. And the larger the racks, the greater the emotion, Noll said.

"If deer didn't have antlers, we wouldn't even be having these meetings," he said.