(Area) The Iowa DNR held a series of public meetings in late February to go over harvest data on hunting seasons.
The deer harvest in the state showed a slight decline. “Things look pretty steady out there when you only go down by six percent and we were within that range that the biologist wants our harvest to be. That being between 100,000 and 120,000 deer. All in all, a pretty successful white tail deer season last year.”
Bryan Hayes with the DNR Office in Lewis says the weather was mild which typically impacts the harvest numbers. “As far as a total statewide harvest last year was 102,810. That’s a decrease of six percent compared to last year. All of the seasons experienced some type of decrease in harvest with the largest being during those early season.”
License sales experienced a slight drop. “Pretty steady, but they did decrease by one percent compared last year.” Hayes says there were 90,000 archery tags and archery hunters harvested almost 24,000 deer. The first shotgun season had 62,000 licenses sold with 24,000 deer harvest. The second shotgun season had 65,000 licenses sold and 20,000 deer harvested. There 344,000 total licenses sold.
