(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is hosting a series of public meetings to discuss the past hunting and trapping season and possible rule and regulation changes to the sports. The meetings will be in locations across the state from Feb. 17th through the 20th. This past weekend on KJAN’s Conservation Report, Cass-Adair County Conservation Officer Adam Gacke says during the meetings, biologists generally come out to provide an update specific to each area in the state.

In this area, meetings will be held in Mills and Union Counties.

Gacke says they’re hoping to have a good turnout at those and other meetings across the State.

Comments collected from the meetings will be presented to the Natural Resources Commission and will be considered by DNR before it proposes any changes to hunting or trapping regulations.

Again, those area meeting locations and dates are:

• Glenwood, Feb. 17, 6:30 p.m., Southwest Iowa Sportman’s Club, 22869 Jamett Road
• Creston, Feb. 20, 6 p.m., Performing Arts Building multi-purpose room (124), 1201 West Townline St.

In other outdoor news, Gacke says persons wanting to go ice-fishing need to be aware that with the recent heat wave, ice conditions are variable, and can be dangerous.

The Iowa DNR reported nine OHV/ATVs broke through the ice late last month – seven at the Iowa Great Lakes on the Minnesota border, and two at Lake Rathbun, on the Missouri border. Fortunately, no injuries were reported. Gacke says where you start onto a lake or body of water can be completely different from where you intend to set-up your ice-fishing equipment.

Officials with the Iowa DNR announced in January, the agency sold more than 300,000 hunting, fishing or combination annual licenses to Iowa residents in 2024 and nearly 50,000 annual fishing, hunting or combination licenses to nonresidents. The figures do not include shorter time period licenses, lifetime licenses or specific season licenses. Annual licenses for 2024 expired Jan. 10, and Iowa’s final deer seasons wrapped up Jan. 19, which according to DNR’s harvest report, more than 101,000 deer were harvested in 2024. This was close to the totals for 2023, which reached 104,000 deer.

DNR asked the public to help collect samples throughout the hunting season to monitor for chronic wasting disease. The department collected more than 5,000 samples from deer across the state during the 2024-2025 deer seasons and confirmed 51 wild deer were positive for the disease that is fatal to deer. The department increased the number of samples it gathered in 2024 after confirming the disease in 128 wild deer in 2023. The 2024 figures are close to what the state saw in 2021, according to the DNR interactive database.