MADISON (WSAU) The state Natural Resources Board will decide today whether to consider a longer deer hunting season in Wisconsin.

D-N-R staff members are asking the board to take the first step, and hold eight public hearings next month on the question of extending the November gun deer season from nine days to 16. It now starts on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and the new proposal would have it starting a week earlier beginning in 2010.

The longer gun season is one option for controlling the state’s deer herd. That’s after the board scrapped the controversial Earn-a-Buck program – in which hunters were required to shoot does before they could take trophy bucks.