The hunting seasons for pheasants and deer get a lot of attention in Iowa, but there are hunters who chase smaller game animals.
Iowa DNR upland game biologist Todd Bogenschutz says many hunters like to go after cottontail rabbits. “Last year was a really good year for cottontails. I mean, we’re 30%t above the ten-year average. We’re 20% above the long term average. That’s like half a century,” Bogenschutz says.
He says many hunters will often wait until the crops go out to hunt rabbits because they then have less cover. Bogenschutz says the roadside survey shows good numbers. “Bunny numbers are really good. So if you’re a rabbit hunter, It should be another good fall, as good as last year,” he says.
Iowa sees a lot of non-resident hunters from Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, and Arkansas come here for rabbits “Yeah, we get a lot of folks where you know rabbit hunting is bigger in that part of the country and they realize that we have good numbers here and probably not the hunting pressure that they see down there for cottontails,” he says, “so yeah, we do have a lot of folks from particularly southeast part of the United States definitely call and want to know about rabbit trends in Iowa.”
The south-central and southeast areas of the state have the largest cottontail numbers. The rabbit season opened Saturday (September 5th) and runs through February 28th.
Bogenschutz expects squirrel hunters to come away happy as well. “We think acorn production is down a little bit this year, so that may impact squirrel numbers a little bit, but we still think it’s going to be, if you’re a squirrel hunter, it’s still going to be a good year,” he says. Squirrel season also opened Saturday and runs through January 31st.