Wisconsin State Park Admission for Veterans

Wisconsin's state park admission benefit for veterans is commonly described as a free annual pass for any honorably discharged veteran who lives in the state. That is not what the Department of Natural Resources gives. The free card is rated. A Wisconsin resident veteran who is service-connected at 70 percent or higher, and a former prisoner of war, may receive a free DNR-issued Wisconsin Resident Disabled Veteran Park Admission Card, which waives the vehicle admission fee and the trail pass fee at state parks, forests and trails. Seventy percent is a high threshold by the standards of this catalog and it is the figure the DNR applies. Every other veteran gets two days. Section 27.01(7)(c)1m. exempts from the vehicle admission fee any vehicle other than a bus occupied by a person who produces evidence that they are a Wisconsin resident and a service member, on Veterans Day and on the three-day weekend from Saturday through Monday that includes Memorial Day. That is a real benefit and it is not an annual pass. Application for the free card runs through a county veterans service officer. The applicant completes the DNR disabled veteran park pass application and takes it to the CVSO, who certifies it with a signature and stamp. It is not obtainable at a park gate. The card is for Wisconsin residents. A non-resident veteran, however highly rated, is outside it. Wisconsin's other DNR provisions for veterans are more generous than the park pass and are worth knowing alongside it. A resident veteran rated 30 percent or more may receive a free permit to hunt deer in a designated disabled hunting area. A veteran rated 50 percent or more, or a Purple Heart recipient, may take one retriever dog training course free. A Purple Heart recipient may buy a conservation patron licence for ten dollars as a resident or a hundred and sixty-one as a non-resident, which carries hunting, fishing and trapping at resident rates. Non-resident veterans who meet the chapter 45 service test may buy at resident licence rates. Service members on leave get free small game hunting and fishing licences on production of a military identification card and leave papers, together with a set of bonus harvest authorisations that are available even where a zone has sold out. Service members who completed basic training are exempt from the hunter safety course requirement, and a member who cannot use a drawn permit may defer it. Because these provisions sit at different percentages, 30 for the disabled hunting area permit, 50 for the dog training, 70 for the park card, a veteran should check each separately rather than assuming one rating opens them all.