"Deerly" Beloved
Officials Balance Urban Growth, Nature While Controlling Deer Population
Des Moines, Iowa (Jan. 30, 1997)-- As urban sprawl in Iowa pushes out into wooded areas, the human and deer worlds collide with multifaced consequences. But state officials point out that attempts to manage the deer population will almost certainly leave some group upset.
Allen Farris, head of the fish and wildlife division of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, told state legislators that respecting the wishes of various publics makes the department's job a balancing act.
At the heart of the DNR's efforts is to find what Farris terms a "socially acceptable" level of deer, where hunters, farmers, landowners, automobile drivers and others agree on a population neither too high nor too low. Farris put that number at about 85,000 to 90,000 deer statewide, a relatively narrow window.
At a joint meeting of the state Legislature's Agriculture/Natural Resources Committee last week, he said the DNR's long-term goal is to have a population to produce an annual harvest of 90,000 to 100,000 deer. No overall population is known because of the complication of finding an exact number, so the DNR follows trend indicators such as winter aerial surveys, Farris said.
Finding that target range "is the hardest thing we do," Farris said. "We try to cover the spectrum of people concerned about wildlife." That included listening to hunter and farmer complaints, issuing a landowner study and holding about 20 public meetings a year around the state.
Loren Lown, a natural resources specialist with the Polk County Conservation Board, sees things a little differently. "The deer have a people problem," he said, not the other way around. "Deer are a symptom of the urban expansion and overcrowding. They are not the problem."
Lown agreed that DNR control of deer numbers will never completely satisfy the whole population, but he also points out the need for better planning and creative zoning.
The problem, as measured by motor vehicles accidents, is significant. Sonya Willis of the statistics division of the office of driver services in the Department of Transportation said 5,227 of the 65,754 total accidents in 1994 involved animals in the roadway, or about 8 percent. In 1995, 8,078 of 76,456 total accidents, or 10.5 percent, involved animals.
Willis said the animal in question is a deer about 90 percent of the time and that all figures are preliminary.
A video produced by the DNR states the single most effective way of reducing the deer numbers is through sport hunting. Farris supported that by exposing flaws with other methods. Trapping and transporting may sound popular, he said, "but who wants another deer? There's no place to put them. Also, it's not easy to trap in the summer." In addition, Lown said 80 percent of deer die during transport from shock, stress and dehydration.
Some birth control exists, but none for wild, untamed deer. Sharpshooters draw objections because they often hunt at night by shining lights in the deers' eyes. This is seen as less fair or desirable, Farris said. "Besides, deer are not stupid animals. (Shooting) may work once or twice," but not much beyond that, he said.
Current DNR policy has loosened regulations on hunting to increase the number of deer taken in season. Hunters and landowners are encouraged to shoot any-sex deer, just not bucks. In addition, the January 1997 season brought in enough deer that the DNR will hold another January season in 1998.
"It is a stepwise progression toward more liberal regulations," Farris said at the committee meeting about the policy.
Lown said the increased numbers means a different approach should be taken.
"You have to realize the deer population in Iowa is greater now than at any time since the European settlement" because of more food being available, Lown said. Compounding that problem, he said, is poor planning and development. "Once development starts, you are tied into it," he said.
More constructive community planning, including creative zoning to leave green space near creeks and other natural travel corridors, will help alleviate problems in the future, he said.
"Development for the sake of development is perhaps overdone.... All society needs to pay attention to who we are and what we are doing," Lown said.
A concession on the part of homeowners is necessary as well, he added. "If people are going to move into the deer's backyard, they need to learn to live with a certain population," Lown said.
Without better planning, the result will be "less and less habitat for more and more deer," Lown said.
But before communities can plan, the role of deer in planning needs to be considered. And Farris said the lack on discussion about the mission guiding the DNR's hunting regulations has him a little worried that there may not be agreement on the long-term goal.
"I feel a bit like Paul Reiser," he said, referring to the comedian's series of commercials where he fails to explain a long-distance telephone plan.
© 1997 CyberPress Communications, School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Drake University 50311.
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