(State) For the first time since 2013, Iowa’s Deer Harvest figure has come up shy of 100,000. The 2019 total reached 92,944 before the season closed on January 10th.
The Iowa DNR’s Bryan Hayes reports the harvest included over 43,000 does and more than 47,000 bucks. It’s only the 2nd time since at least 2006 the harvest has been short of 100,000.
“You have to go back to 1995 when we first broke the 100,000 harvest barrier and then we ran for about 25 years of harvesting over 100,000 deer in the state.”
Several factors may have played a role in the decline. “Is it lack of participation, is it weather? I wouldn’t have thought weather would be a factor this year. There were pretty good conditions during the shotgun one and shotgun two deer seasons.”
Hayes says the wildlife department will discuss harvest numbers as well as factor in roadkill information from the Iowa DOT before making plans for next year.
Year-By-Year Deer Harvest Data
2006-150,522
2007-146,214
2008-142,194
2009-136,504
2010-127,094
2011-121,407
2012-115,608
2013-99,414
2014-101,595
2015-105,401
2016-101,398
2017-105,933
2018-108,402
2019-92,944
