Unfortunately, Kaare, it is mostly only a doom and gloom crowd that you are responding to. Biologically speaking, it is not fragile, nor is it anywhere near teetering on the brink of disaster.
Fragile? It is too bad that you have read that in here. It is laughable to me when I read that when we are talking about the deer resource in Iowa. Pheasants maybe, maybe some other resources too, but whitetail deer? The only thing all of these worries when talking whitetails is the "big buck" resource, and competition. The whitetail resource in Iowa is far from being a fragile resource. Human interference has historically been the only threat, and other threats, have not. High populations make all other threats worse. Human hunting interference only helps this concern. Human interference and lower populations help those concerns, not hurt them.
Teetering on disaster? We harvested more deer with fewer tags in the 2014 season than in the 2013 season. We have seen habitat destruction for over 100 years but saw whitetail populations do nothing but grow until tags and hunter numbers grew. Even less habitat has little to do with the spread of the whitetail population. We proved that in the late 90s. Only hunting and more tags slowed the population growth. With that said, I am not promoting a lower deer population, but to those who say fragile or disaster? Nope.
- You attend any of the meetings the DNR put across the state last year? Vast majority were folks expressing their feelings, in areas with exceptionally low deer #'s, very few deer sightings period & pleading with the DNR to do away with the late antlerless season. Why do you think the season went away? Do you think that was an easy thing to happen? Of course not, it went away because masses of hunters, across the state saw the hunting deteriorate at a rapid rate. SIMPLE & SHORT ARGUMENT - there had to be EXTREME FORCES to win a fight against Farm Bureau to get rid of late antlerless and change our path. The ONLY way that happened was from masses of grass roots hunters voicing outrage at our direction and current circumstances.
-We can all look at our deer herd from the scope of the block or 2 we hunt. I am fortunate enough to be able to travel the state and see the landscape from the "lots of deer" areas to "deer deserts" and I absolutely will claim there's vast (MAJORITY) of the state where deer #'s have hit extreme lows. Many of my friends that hunt in areas like the ag lands around Waterloo, Northwest Iowa, Mason City area, Forest City, etc- almost unanimously said "dude, we got hit hard, it's very tough hunting" in some form of that (kinda like what you hear from pheasant hunters). I hunt pockets with "high deer numbers", I hunt medium population areas & I walk a lot of buddies land that is "pretty low" (as in, it could hold & support 5-7 times the amount of deer if I had to assess based on my knowledge, not advocating it should be there but it easily could). That "pretty low or not really worth hunting sentiment" pretty common in TWO THIRD'S THE STATE. If you're stuck in a county with 50% timber, great, I'm sure you see plenty, but if you're in one of many counties (majority) with 2% timber, I bet you have a different perspective on deer #'s and how close we are to screwing things up. (and screwing things up can mean anything in the spectrum of: having very few deer to hunt - all the way to simply ruining the age structure, etc).
-How a state with 5-7% timber & tens of thousands of acres of CRP habitat being taken out and put into row crops isn't fragile - I don't know a better definition I guess? I guarantee you, frigin bet the farm, no one 20-30 years ago thought PHEASANT HUNTING had any major threats. Bet they'd say "what, those things are everywhere, it's a tourism craze, it's the definition of Iowa - great pheasant hunting"..... In 20 years or less (I'd say it's been bad for at least 10) for a variety of reasons pheasants aren't even thought of for a great recreation in Iowa. Kinda like iowa as a destination boating & skiing location- not really on the map (ok, maybe never was for that one). I own farms here and my love of pheasant hunting would create a trip to SD or ND where the hunting is great. Pheasants and other examples are impacted for some different reasons, sure, SOME. But, a lot revolves around our changing habitat, attention put on those animals, dollars involved, etc (the list is vast) - pheasants can drop off the map in a decade. For some similar reasons or different, why we don't think, at a MINIMUM, our state couldn't mirror Michigan's deer, Missouri's, Minnesota, Illinois, etc or be worse, I don't get how anyone couldn't see we could easily see our hunting go down the tubes with a few bad regs......
****Where we define "down the tubes" or "FRAGILE" (results of being fragile) is where I think we fundamentally disagree (150's sentiment above).... I do actually, like I expressed earlier, think we have those vast areas that have been trashed, shot to piss and made hunting "pretty poor in general" (kinda like pheasants and why folks quit hunting them). Then, we have IOWA now..... A REPUTATION as a shining example of common sense management that has "good hunting or great hunting" in many areas of the state (yes, concentrated and the shows on TV show them on the best places & farms that exist in the state, not really a good representation but whatever). We have a reputation for a good balanced age structure, guys who pass bucks to get to maturity and a "good chance at a mature buck". That's rightfully how I and many others view Iowa (A HECK OF A LOT BETTER THAN SURROUNDING STATES!!!). Why folks from surrounding states flock here and why we have a waiting list, 3-4 years long to bowhunt here (vs going there is over the counter but vast amounts of them want to leave to come here). We are 1, 2, 3 regulation changes away (whatever and depends what they are) from being the exact same as Missouri, Michigan, Minnesota, etc. - crap (IMHO). (PUT YOUR NAME AS "150" on a MI website - you'd be the guy who folks would think is hunting for a Sasquatch there cause they are almost like a myth). FRAGILE.... You do ONE thing - you put gun season Nov 15 here, this place would "go down the tubes" for all that Iowa stands for, guaran-frigin-tee it. You put 30,000 more guys out during archery season with crossbows (making this up), add 3 more weeks to our deer season, create all these new weaponed seasons, WHATEVER- all these put a lot at stake on our state's resource and I've seen the results living in those situations in other states and they are a joke. Places like Canada can get away with anything because so few people live and hunt there. Iowa is different, every block here gets "continuous heavy pressure all season" to varying degrees but I'd venture most on here would agree there is no area lacking substantial pressure in iowa. IF We ruin it here, I mean, maybe guys - where do you go? Maybe run across down to Kansas or up to Canada BUT, I mean, I've been through all the other states like: MI, NE, IL, etc- I've spent years there- Ive seen what happens from regs, politicians, special interests, $, etc. If we ruin this place, keep messing with the regs, you will wake up 1 year or 1 decade (who knows) and put deer & pheasants in the same category, the
"man, it used to be good here, what the heck happened???!?!!??!" It can happen over night & don't believe anyone who says it can't! Don't let it happen, don't continue to mess with our regs. Defend Iowa, keep Iowa Iowa by the definition we have now because it is fragile.
