(Radio Iowa) – The archery season for deer continues and will run right up to the first shotgun season on December 6th. Iowa D-N-R deer biologist, Jace Elliott says western Iowa’s deer populations continues to struggle. “We’re still going through a sustained population decline as far as harvest and population trends show, and that’s been going on for 10 or 15 years. We’re working proactively with regulations to try to reverse that trend,” he says. Elliott says central Iowa is trying to rebound from recent hemorrhagic disease outbreaks.

“In some cases, very severe impact on local deer numbers in the 2023 and 2024 season, so it’s possible that numbers are going to be a bit lower this year than they were over the last decade or so in central Iowa,” Elliott says. “But then in eastern Iowa, in many cases we have very strong deer numbers… in some cases we have the strongest deer harvest that we’ve had in in 20 years.” Elliott says the hemorrhagic disease outbreaks have eased off. “This year shows to be exceptionally mild. We’ve only just had one off cases reported across the state, very few of them compared to the last couple of years, so that should offer some relief in populations that were impacted recently,” Elliott says. Elliott says the wet weather before things started getting dry in September has given deer plenty to eat.

“During the growing season, that’s a really nutrient expensive time for deer, whether we’re talking about bucks that are growing antlers, that takes a tremendous amount of resources and minerals and nutrients in order to grow antlers,” he says. “And whether we’re talking about does, they’re lactating, and that’s also. Its own nutrient demand, so it’s important to have a lot of vegetation on the landscape.” Hunters have taken around eight thousand deer in the ongoing bow season and the now completed early muzzleloader season.