Deer herd is thinning

December 20, 2011

Washington, Iowa

Deer Hunters

To the Editor:

This letter is to alert you of the substantial reduction of the deer herds in Iowa.

In the ?40s and ?50s the white tail deer in southeast Iowa along the Skunk River were almost extinct. In the ?60s they started to repopulate and in the ?70s they opened the first deer season. You applied for a license and received an antlered-deer-only tag. As the deer herd grew, there was a drawing, and a few any-sex tags were given out.

The herds continued to grow, and the DNR dropped the drawing and allowed you to purchase your tag locally. The licenses were any-sex.

The deer population exploded in the ?90s, and pressure was put on the DNR to reduce the deer population. The DNR started selling additional doe tags to anyone who wished to purchase them. There was no limit to the number you could purchase. I was told of hunters who killed as many as 30 does in one year.

Now I would like to show you what this uncontrolled sale of doe tags has done to the deer population.

We hunt about 800 acres of timber land east of Sandy Hook, where I was born ? about 300 acres along Skunk River, and the rest is the hills north of the road.

Prior to 2005-2006, we would drive the bottom along Skunk River and we would have five walkers. There were times we would see in excess of 100 deer.

This year on opening day we saw only 10 deer on the river bottom. On the 800 acres we saw fewer than 20 deer out of our group of 10 hunters.

Our group has not shot a doe in 10 years, because I knew what uncontrolled doe killing would do to the deer population. When you kill a mature doe, you reduce the deer population the next year by three, because a doe will have twins and some will have triplets.

In this area I do not believe a doe tag should be issued for five years, to allow the deer population to return to a respectable level.

I talked to a DNR officer who was as upset about the deer numbers as I was. He said the DNR was partially to blame, but they were getting a lot of pressure from the Farm Bureau to reduce the deer population.

The DNR, with pressure from lobbyists in Des Moines and the hunters who shot excessive numbers of does, have ruined deer hunting in Washington County for many years to come.

I truly love deer hunting, and I will never experience hunting like it was five years ago, again in my lifetime.

Sincerely,

Gary De Wolf

If you wish to make your views known, the following is a list of people you can call: State Representative Sandy Greiner, 641-636-2293; Deer Forest Wildlife, Tom Litchfield or Jim Coffey, 641-774-2958; Wildlife Research Leader Willie Suchy, 515-281-8660; Wildlife Inventory Monitoring, attn. Pat, 515-432-2823; DNR, Lake Darling, 319-694-2430; DNR, Des Moines, 515-281-5918.