Hunters, state at odds over deer

Gov. Terry Branstad is keeping the pedal to the metal in the effort to reduce the size of the state's deer herd.

Responding to pressure from the governor, the Natural Resources Commission on Thursday rescinded its earlier order of intended action to reduce antlerless deer quotas in 35 counties.

During the upcoming deer seasons, Iowa will make available the same number of antlerless deer licenses - 132,900 - as it did last year, said Greg Drees of Arnolds Park, chairman of the Natural Resources Commission.

But that doesn't mean hunters - many of whom have been complaining of too few deer - will buy them, said Randy Taylor of Reasnor, vice president of the Iowa Bowhunters Association.

“The state can put those doe tags out there, but the hunter is the management tool. We don't have to shoot those does, and if we stop shooting them, the deer herd will be right back where it was,” Taylor said.

Both Drees and Willie Suchy, wildlife research manager for the Department of Natural Resources, worry that state leaders' mixed signals will confuse hunters and make them less responsive to future calls for increased pressure on deer.

“They'll figure they've been burned once by shooting too many does and that they will never do that again,” Suchy said.

Suchy predicts deer numbers will climb to unacceptable levels in more parts of Iowa as “hunters take matters into their own hands and stop shooting does.”

Taylor said he thinks it's a shame that the governor is listening to special-interest groups rather than “some of the most highly respected deer biologists in the nation.”

Taylor referred to a recently assembled coalition consisting of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, the Iowa Corn Growers Association, the Iowa Soybean Association, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, the Iowa Insurance Institute and the Iowa Nursery and Landscape Association.

In a May 10 letter to Branstad, the coalition criticized the DNR plan to curtail issuance of antlerless deer tags, citing the likelihood of increased damage to crops and more deer-vehicle collisions.

The Farm Bureau Spokesman, in its May 18 edition, said Branstad, after hearing the coalition's concerns, instructed the DNR to revise its antlerless deer tag plans.

“In his meetings with Iowans across the state, the governor continues to hear that the size of the herd remains problematic, especially for drivers in rural areas, that the herd is not at the level it needs to be and that more thinning needs to be done,” Branstad spokesman Tim Albrecht said Thursday.

Iowa's deer population peaked in 2006, according to DNR deer biologist Tom Litchfield. In response to hunters' increased pressure on does, which began in 2003, annual harvests have been steadily declining since 2006, he said.

The reported harvest for the 2010-11 deer seasons was 127,094 - down from 136,504 in the preceding year and from 142,194 in the year before that, he said.

Suchy said the reduction in doe tags would have occurred in 35 counties, many of them in east-central Iowa, where wildlife managers believe the deer population has either stabilized at or is trending toward 1990 levels.

Among the 35 counties slated for reductions were Linn (1,900 to 1,100), Johnson (2,000 to 1,300), Jones (1,500 to 750), Cedar (1,300 to 1,000), Benton (1,000 to 700), Iowa (1,200 to 950), Delaware (1,540 to 1,440), Fayette (2,500 to 1,300) and Washington (2,250 to 1,350).