Deer harder to find in seventh year of Cedar Rapids urban bow hunt

Bow hunters took fewer deer in the city's just-completed annual urban deer hunt than in any of the hunt's six previous seasons.

In a season that ran from Sept. 17 through Jan. 15, bow hunters killed 182 deer, a number that is about half of the number of 349 deer that were killed during the season four years ago.

In the first year of the city's "deer management program" in 2005, hunters killed 298 deer. In subsequent years, the numbers were 333, 349, 314, 312, 207 and now 182. That's a total of 1,995 deer since 2005.

The decline in the Cedar Rapids hunt's numbers mirrors a decline statewide in the number of deer taken during the state's shotgun season. Hunters killed an estimated 9 percent fewer deer than a year ago, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources has recently reported.

On Wednesday, DNR wildlife biologist Tim Thompson in Iowa City said the reduced number of deer killed statewide is evidence that the state's deer population has declined, which he said meant that the hunting program that DNR administers has reduced deer numbers to about the level intended by the program.

However, no one, Thompson said, is suggesting that the state abandon the hunting of deer, a species in which about 80 percent of the does annually give birth to twins once they reach the breeding age of about 18 months, he said.

Likewise, he said Cedar Rapids would see an immediate increase in its deer population should it abandon its annual bow hunt.

"If you stop managing, if you stop hunting, deer populations can bounce back in three years," Thompson said. "… The main mortality of deer is human-related. You take them during the hunting season or you hit them with a vehicle. You take away the hunt, you'll hit more with your vehicles."

In Cedar Rapids, the Fire Department operates the city's urban bow hunt, and Greg Buelow, the department's special projects coordinator, on Wednesday reported that the city's seventh consecutive annual bow hunt took place without major incidents and without injuries.

Back in 2005, the City Council put an annual bow hunt in place - in the face of what had been some years of vocal opposition - after both the city's police and fire chiefs said the city needed to reduce the number of vehicle-deer collisions in the city. The city, the chiefs argued, had become a safe haven for a growing population of deer because hunting was permitted around the city but not inside of it.

The city's Buelow said that the central goal of the Cedar Rapids hunt is being realized. He said the city estimates that vehicle-deer collisions in the city are down 57 percent from the number the year before the city's bow hunt began. Aric Sloterdyk, a DNR conservation officer in Linn County, this week said the roadkill of deer is down about 60 percent in the city.

In early 2008, a DNR aerial count of deer in and near Cedar Rapids counted 2,315 deer - 783 fewer than the 3,098 deer spotted the year before. The last count, in 2010, found 1,938 deer. A new count is likely yet this winter, the DNR's Thompson said.

Cedar Rapids deer hunter Bert Carmer, who has participated in the city's bow hunt from the start, said Wednesday that deer numbers in the northeast Cedar Rapids spots he's hunted are down dramatically.

"We've saved a lot of lives and a lot of injuries and a lot of property damage," he said. "That's what the city wanted. It's working."

At the same time, Carmer is a bit of a frustrated bow hunter. He noted that the Cedar Rapids hunt targets does as a way to reduce the number of offspring annually, and as an incentive, the hunt's rules allow a hunter to get a tag to shoot a more-prized buck in the next year's hunt if the hunter takes five does in the current hunt. Taking five does is no longer easy, said Carmer.

In fact, he said in years past he might see 10 does in a section of timber to one buck, and today, he sees only a few does and several bucks. His remedy: Let hunters in Cedar Rapids shoot more bucks. He quit hunting at Thanksgiving this year because of the difficulty in finding does, he said.

The DNR's Thompson suggested that an experience like Carmer's is the way a deer management program like Cedar Rapids' can regulate itself as frustrated hunters go to more productive areas to hunt only to return when the deer numbers in a once-productive area start to rebound.

Amana, Ames, Bettendorf, Clinton, Coralville, Davenport, Denison, Dubuque, Eldora, Iowa Falls, Keokuk, Knoxville, Muscatine, Marshalltown, Oskaloosa, Ottumwa, the Polk County metro area, Waterloo and Cedar Falls all have urban bow hunts in addition to Cedar Rapids, Thompson said.

In Coralville's just-completed hunt, hunters killed 100 deer, up from 90 a year ago, the city reported on Wednesday.

Most people, Thompson said, don't know urban bow hunts are under way, but they are apt to know when they aren't and deer numbers start to multiply.

Thompson said deer management is not unlike trapping mice in a rural home. Just because you catch a couple mice, doesn't mean mice won't be back if you give up on putting out traps, he said.

In recent years, the City Council has kept the city's annual bow hunt of deer in place without comment, and the city's Buelow said there has not been any discussion about giving up on the hunt.

In the Cedar Rapids bow hunt that just ended, 97 hunters qualified to participate with 41 of the 97 taking a deer. Three hunters took the most deer, seven each.

Twenty-eight of the deer were donated to the DNR's Help Us Stop Hunger program, while 154 were kept by hunters for personal consumption.