Survey results are confirming the successful deer hunting season that had been predicted by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Willy Suchy is a deer biologist.He says it looks like hunters took 160 to 165-thousand deer, a big increase from last year. Suchy says they type of deer taken are as important as the number. He says the good news is it looks like most of the increase was in antlerless deer — about 20-thousand of the 25-thousand increase were does. The number of doe licenses were increased this year as Suchy says the D-N-R tried to thin the deer population that was 10 to 15 percent higher than what it should be. He says it’s the type of results they were hoping to get, and he says they’ll probably look at the same type of effort in the next season. Suchy says mother nature didn’t help much to thin the herd naturally. He says we had an intense period of snow and cold, but it didn’t last long enough to have much impact on the deer. The surveys are taken by telephone from hunters and by low-flying airplanes that attempt to count the deer..
