Hunter
11/17/21
The deer-management plan put in place in 2019 by the City of Iowa City isn’t meeting expectations.
The Daily Iowan reports that the first phase of the plan, conducted from 2019 to 2020, involved professional sharpshooters who harvested about 500 deer during the period. But since then, the voluntary citizen bow hunt hasn’t kept up.
The paper says Anthony DeNicola, CEO of White Buffalo Inc., a nonprofit organization partnering with the city to survey the deer population, said the city needed to harvest at least 55 deer in 2020 to control the population density, but only three deer were harvested during the hunt.
The current bow-hunting season started September 18th and ends January 10th. Only four hunters have signed up so far, and only two deer have been culled from the herd.
Iowa DNR Conservation officer Andy Kellner told the paper that many of the hunters who signed up for the 2020 season contracted COVID-19. He says in order to get the deer population back to 2018 levels, hunters will need to harvest over 100 deer this season.