The tough winter weather could have some benefit in the efforts to thin the state deer herd. Iowa Department of Natural Resources deer biologist, Tom Litchfield, says the weather could cut the number of new deer born.
Litchfield says 50% to 70% of fawns born in the spring of 2007 would breed in December, one of the highest breeding rates in the country. He says the cold weather in December likely suppressed some of the breeding as the deer switched to survival mode.
Litchfield says the weather won’t do much to hurt the deer who’re already roaming the woods in Iowa. Litchfield says he doesn’t expect to see many animals lost to starvation or fawns lost because they are undernourished. He says Iowa has a rich food supply for deer.
He says there’s still waste grain in the fields after the harvest and the deer went into the late fall and early winter in good shape. Litchfield says there were also a few moderate periods this winter that helped the deer when they needed to find food. And he says deer can stand some tough conditions.
"Deer have the capability of coasting for a couple of months, easy," he says, "and they haven’t had to just totally shut down and wait out going without food for that length of time." The DNR will conduct a couple of surveys in March to gauge the deer population.