Fishbonker
Life Member
I attended the Deer Study Commission meeting yesterday up by Ames. It was quite an experience in many ways. The first experience was meeting a Charter Member of the Keepers Of Odd Knowledge Society. One of his “ideas” is to round up all the deer in Iowa and put them in feed lot type areas. He would have four feedlots placed around the State, much like the Mental Health Institutions (his words not mine), and when deer season opens he would have the deer trucked to state parks so they could be hunted. His plan would stop all deer damage and car collisions. I said think for a second about the State trout trucks and how anglers congregate at the spot the trout are dumped, now think about the hunters with guns instead of rods. Didn’t faze him a bit. I learned later that he is a well known attendee at meetings like this. NOTE: He is not a Commission Member, but if you ask him he’ll tell you he can do a better job than anybody there.
I walked into the meeting thinking I would be able to tell who was who and their stance on deer issues just by my intuitive perception. Imagine my surprise when nobody had horns, a tail or cloven hooves. My vantage point from the peanut gallery did not afford me a view of the name cards placed in front of everybody so I could not tell who was representing what. Even the self introductions around the table didn’t help.
In one of the best moves ever for a Commission like this, they hired a nonpartisan “facilitator” to run the meetings and help the Commission come up with its plan. I was quite impressed with the way she ran the meetings and encouraged team work. Her presence did somewhat allay my fears of a biased Chairman running the meeting, but her real power to forge consensus remains to be seen.
Yesterday’s meeting was still a sort of “fact finding mission” with members of the DNR Wildlife Bureau presenting facts on the deer herd in Iowa. The presentations included herd numbers, hunter success rates broken down into method of take, day of take, county of take, area of take and sex ratios. It is MY evaluation of the numbers that shows the herd STATE WIDE is staying the same but there are pockets where the heard is declining to the goals set. I don’t believe there were any areas that actually showed an increase in herd numbers, but more of a plateau, perhaps due to carrying capacity has reached its limit. (MY THOUGHTS, NOT DNR).
Actually there were three presentations, one on the history and social impact of hunting, one with the numbers and one with the economics of the funding of the DNR through deer tags and how many nondeer programs are funded through deer tag sales. After each presentation the Commission broke into randomly chosen small work groups with a list of topics to discuss and then bring back the points that need to be further discussed and prioritized.
I guess, bottom line for the day, it was hard to devine who was after what on the Commission. There was the transferable landowner tags and more acres should equal more land owners tags from some Farm Bureau types, there were access issues, there was NR hunter issues, outfitter issues, and funding issues. In my opinion the Director of the DNR would like to open the NR revenue spigot but the wildlife guys were publicly being very diplomatic on their views on this issue (except the one biologist type guy who piped up and said “we didn’t ask for an increase”) but in private I’m guessin there isn’t too much support for much, if any, increase in NR numbers. There were a lot of very good questions from the members to the DNR to clarify points and further understand all of the inputs to the deer hunting.
There were several members of the Commission who asked why the DNR has to go through the legislature to change rules and regs and there wasn’t a good answer, but I’m on the fence on this one. With the legislature we have a check and balance known as a ballot box. If the DNR was able to change doctrine at whim where is the check and balance? Elect a Governor who will appoint a Director that you want? Dunno still thinking hard on that one.
OK, bottom bottom line for the day, the Commission is still in fact finding mode with different factions feeling each other out. There were a few topics that came up that give me heart burn, but it is still too soon to tell how things are gonna pan out.
OK OK, bottom bottom bottom line for the day. The DNR guys that were there had their poop in a group. Their presentations were well thought out with good solid numbers and historical references (even as far back as the Magna Carta). The Commission should feel well served by Willie and The Boys. Unfortunately I refer to them as “The Boys” because I suck at remembering names and I was introduced to each of them but there was food in the area and that was number one on my mind.
If you have specific questions about a given topic I’ll try to go through my notes and memory to get you a flavor of the discussion on topics that were discussed.
The ‘Bonker
I walked into the meeting thinking I would be able to tell who was who and their stance on deer issues just by my intuitive perception. Imagine my surprise when nobody had horns, a tail or cloven hooves. My vantage point from the peanut gallery did not afford me a view of the name cards placed in front of everybody so I could not tell who was representing what. Even the self introductions around the table didn’t help.
In one of the best moves ever for a Commission like this, they hired a nonpartisan “facilitator” to run the meetings and help the Commission come up with its plan. I was quite impressed with the way she ran the meetings and encouraged team work. Her presence did somewhat allay my fears of a biased Chairman running the meeting, but her real power to forge consensus remains to be seen.
Yesterday’s meeting was still a sort of “fact finding mission” with members of the DNR Wildlife Bureau presenting facts on the deer herd in Iowa. The presentations included herd numbers, hunter success rates broken down into method of take, day of take, county of take, area of take and sex ratios. It is MY evaluation of the numbers that shows the herd STATE WIDE is staying the same but there are pockets where the heard is declining to the goals set. I don’t believe there were any areas that actually showed an increase in herd numbers, but more of a plateau, perhaps due to carrying capacity has reached its limit. (MY THOUGHTS, NOT DNR).
Actually there were three presentations, one on the history and social impact of hunting, one with the numbers and one with the economics of the funding of the DNR through deer tags and how many nondeer programs are funded through deer tag sales. After each presentation the Commission broke into randomly chosen small work groups with a list of topics to discuss and then bring back the points that need to be further discussed and prioritized.
I guess, bottom line for the day, it was hard to devine who was after what on the Commission. There was the transferable landowner tags and more acres should equal more land owners tags from some Farm Bureau types, there were access issues, there was NR hunter issues, outfitter issues, and funding issues. In my opinion the Director of the DNR would like to open the NR revenue spigot but the wildlife guys were publicly being very diplomatic on their views on this issue (except the one biologist type guy who piped up and said “we didn’t ask for an increase”) but in private I’m guessin there isn’t too much support for much, if any, increase in NR numbers. There were a lot of very good questions from the members to the DNR to clarify points and further understand all of the inputs to the deer hunting.
There were several members of the Commission who asked why the DNR has to go through the legislature to change rules and regs and there wasn’t a good answer, but I’m on the fence on this one. With the legislature we have a check and balance known as a ballot box. If the DNR was able to change doctrine at whim where is the check and balance? Elect a Governor who will appoint a Director that you want? Dunno still thinking hard on that one.
OK, bottom bottom line for the day, the Commission is still in fact finding mode with different factions feeling each other out. There were a few topics that came up that give me heart burn, but it is still too soon to tell how things are gonna pan out.
OK OK, bottom bottom bottom line for the day. The DNR guys that were there had their poop in a group. Their presentations were well thought out with good solid numbers and historical references (even as far back as the Magna Carta). The Commission should feel well served by Willie and The Boys. Unfortunately I refer to them as “The Boys” because I suck at remembering names and I was introduced to each of them but there was food in the area and that was number one on my mind.
If you have specific questions about a given topic I’ll try to go through my notes and memory to get you a flavor of the discussion on topics that were discussed.
The ‘Bonker
