That is an excellent question.
First, I'll let you know that I gave the comments (all of those posted by yesterday noon) to Dale Garner (Wildlife Bureau Chief and Terry Little research supervisor) yesterday so your inputs have already been useful.
The time table for setting deer regulations is as follows:
1. I have to make initial recommendations to the wildlife bureau chief in January. This includes season dates and tentative antlerless quotas. The law enforcement bureau will look at them and make comments. Of course the director has the final say on what will be done.
2. In April whatever regulations the director agrees to are presented to the Natural Resource Commission as a “Notice of intended action”. The NRC must approve the regulations before they can “officially” be published. The notice is filed with the legislature and there is a 45 day period for comments. The statewide ICN meeting is held in mid-late April to gather public comment. Changes in the initial rule can be made based upon the comments received.
3. In June the NRC will meet and look at the comments and any changes. They must approve the regulations (with or without changes) at this time. When approved the “Final rule” goes to the legislative rules committee. They check to see that the rules do what the “code” says and that the department has followed the correct procedure.
Important definitions:
Code: Laws passed by the legislature and signed by the governor. Examples: Cost of license, how many landowner licenses a person can get and who is eligible for one, how many nonresident licenses are issued.
Rules : Administrative rules that are needed to implement the code. Examples: Season dates, method of take, number of antlerless licenses issued.
The DNR can only change things that are in the administrative rule. The DNR cannot write laws. The DNR can only do what the Iowa Code instructs/allows it to do.
Example: “Iowa Code” says that the DNR shall maintain a biological balance for wildlife. “Administrative rules” are used to set the dates of the season and the bag limits to maintain a biological balance.
In recent years the legislature seems to be more and more willing to write into law specific details that would (in my opinion) be better suited to be left in the rule. For instance: The legislation passed last year requires that everyone be allowed to purchase 3 antlerless licenses before October 1st. So now if/when the antlerless quota goes down in some counties the DNR could not reduce the number of antlerless licenses to 1 before Oct 1st with a simple change in the rule. Now it will take change in the law.
As posted above, one of the problems is that I do not have all of the data by the time the notice or public hearing is held in April. Final harvest estimates and the results from the spotlight survey are not finished until early May. Last year that caused a lot of problems. I do not like to do things that way.
Sorry, my reply is so long(and it may seem off topic) but I am trying to answer as completely as possible. I will post my recommendations here in January and keep you updated as things progress.
