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A Sheriff’s deputy from Greene County was cited Nov. 12th following an investigation, for unlawful possession of Whitetail deer antlers. Officials with the Iowa DNR said Wednesday, that on November 3rd, 2018, a DNR Conservation Officer received a call from a man who came upon a scene of a woman who had hit a deer on N Ave. between 185^th and 190^th streets in Greene County. The man waited for a sheriff’s deputy to arrive. Once the deputy arrived, the man asked the deputy about a salvage tag. Greene County Sheriff’s Deputy Kirk Hammer declined to issue him salvage tag.

According to state code, a salvage tag should be first issued to the individuals involved in the accident, and if not interested, then to any bystanders at the scene. A salvage tag was not issued. Later in the day, the same man drove past the scene and observed Greene County Sheriff’s Deputy Kirk Hammer in uniform near the deer cutting the antlers off of the deer with a saw.

When DNR Conservation Officer Nathan Haupert questioned Deputy Hammer, Deputy Hammer admitted to taking the antlers. Officer Haupert met Deputy Hammer at his home and seized the antlers. Officer Haupert explained to Deputy Hammer that it is unlawful to keep the antlers without a deer tag or salvage permit and with a salvage permit the whole deer would need to be removed from the ditch, not just the antlers.

(Radio Iowa) — It’s almost December, temperatures are chilly, and snow is on the ground in many parts of the state. That gets many of us in the mood for the annual tradition of decorating the tree. Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig says there are plenty of locations to find that ideal fir, spruce or pine. “We’ve got over 100 Christmas tree farms across the state and those farms produce or sell about 40,000 Christmas trees each year,” Naig says. “It’s a wonderful way to have some fun, get outdoors and support a local farm.”

It takes between six-and-12 years to grow a Christmas tree and most tree farms in Iowa are three-to-eight acres in size. Most sell trees by the choose-and-harvest method, where customers come to the farm and cut their own trees. Naig says the big boom in the tree business started late last week and will continue well into the final month of the year. “Our Christmas tree farms do a great clip of business here starting on Thanksgiving weekend and over the next couple of weekends,” Naig says. “I think folks do very, very well and most of the Christmas tree growers that I visit with have more demand than supplies.”

Speaking from personal experience, Naig offers a little advice about picking the perfect pine. “Something that we sure didn’t do as well as we should have the first time we did this, make sure you cut the right size Christmas tree,” Naig says. “Make sure you know the size of the spot in the house. It seems to look different when it’s outdoors versus when it’s in the house.”  Once you get your tree home, remember to check the water daily as trees can use up to a gallon of water every day. Also, make sure you unplug any tree lights before you leave home or go to bed. The Christmas tree industry contributes about one-million dollars to Iowa’s economy each year.
http://www.iowachristmastrees.com

(Radio Iowa) — The state ag secretary is asking lawmakers for a quarter of a million dollar budget increase — to boost the “Animal Agriculture Industries Bureau” in the Iowa Department of Agriculture. “To prepare, present, detect and, if needed, to respond in the case of a foreign animal disease.” Ag Secretary Mike Naig says Avian influenza, African swine fever and other foreign animal diseases are a threat to Iowa’s livestock and poultry industries. “Iowa’s a leader in animal production,” Naig says. “We’re number two in total livestock sales — $13.4 billion in the last census — and that number’s only growing.”

Naig has been ag secretary since March and was elected to a full term in this month’s election. His predecessor asked lawmakers for half a million dollars in 2016, shortly after a bird flu outbreak hit Iowa’s poultry industry. Legislators just provided 250-thousand dollars for the effort this year. Three weeks ago, Naig hired a veterinarian to serve as the Iowa Department of Agriculture’s emergency management coordinator. Naig is now asking legislators to provide the rest of the half-a-million dollar budget for the bureau that’s overseeing state preparations for an outbreak of a foreign animal disease.

“Animal disease is an ever-present threat and we’re all on the front line along with the industry and our inspectors and veterinarians,” Naig says. “…The increased funding will help us better support our producers, the industry. We’ll be able to hire or engage the kind of expertise that we need.”

Upgrading the department’s antiquated computer system is key, according to Naig, to ensure alerts can be sent quickly to the right people if there is an outbreak. Naig says if legislators provide the additional money, his agency will host drills for producers in how best to respond if there is an outbreak of foot and mouth or some other disease that can devastate and kill livestock and poultry.

Deer hunters will soon be trading in their bows for shotguns and body harnesses for blaze orange vests as the calendar turns to December and the first of Iowa’s three main gun seasons begin.  And based on reports, it looks like hunting will be good, if the weather cooperates. Tyler Harms, wildlife biometrician with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR), says “Our deer population is similar to last year and they are definitely moving right now. The recent colder weather and rut activity have things looking positive for our shotgun seasons.” First shotgun season is Dec. 1-5, followed by second shotgun season Dec. 8-16. Late muzzleloader season is Dec. 17-Jan. 10, which it shares with the reopening of the bow season.

The bulk of the deer harvest, and hunter participation, occurs during the shotgun seasons. The Iowa DNR expects about 60,000 hunters in each shotgun season, plus 30,000 in the late muzzleloader season. The traditional technique in shotgun season is to drive and post where some members of the group post the end of the timber, while other walk through driving deer towards them. With all that activity in the timber, Harms advised hunters to keep safety at the top of their hunting plan. The hunting plan identifies where each hunter will be and how the hunt will unfold. The plan should also include checking the blaze orange and replace any that has faded over time. Hunters are required to wear one article of external solid blaze orange clothing: vest, jacket, coat, sweatshirt, sweater, short or coveralls. An orange hat alone doesn’t suffice. “You want to be seen by other hunters so it would be a good idea to wear more than the minimum amount of blaze orange required,” Harms said.

Hunters will notice few regulations changes from 2017. The DNR has added a January antlerless season in four counties and new deer management zones near Harpers Ferry, Elkader and Seymour. Unfilled youth deer licenses are now valid for any remaining seasons, but are still mentor licenses and they must follow all other rules specified for each season. Iowa’s overall deer harvest across all seasons last year was 105,578 and the 2018 harvest should be similar.

Report your harvest: The deer is down, tagged and on its way to the truck. But the harvest is not complete until the deer is registered; either online, over the phone or at a license vendor. Online, it takes just a couple minutes. Go to www.iowadnr.gov/hunting and click on the orange ‘Report Your Harvest Online’ bar in the middle of the page.  From there, scroll down and follow instructions. Be ready to enter your tag’s nine-digit harvest report number. By phone? Call 800-771-4692. The deer should be reported by the hunter whose name is on the tag…and it must come before midnight, the day after the deer is tagged. Reporting your harvest is important because harvest numbers are used to manage Iowa’s deer herd annually and it is required by law.

Safety reminder: Hunters are encouraged to use safe hunting practices and to discuss the hunting plan so each member of the hunting group knows where the others will be at all times during the hunt.

Tips:

• Treat every gun as if it is loaded
• Wear plenty of blaze orange
• Be sure of the target and what’s behind it
• Don’t shoot at running deer

Turn in poachers: See something in the field that doesn’t look right? Report hunting violations to Turn in Poachers as soon as possible by calling 1-800-532-2020. Provide as much information as possible like a description of the individual(s), vehicle and time and location of the violation. You can remain anonymous.

Chronic wasting disease: The Iowa DNR has launched a new online system where hunters who provide samples for chronic wasting disease testing can check on the test results themselves. Go to www.iowadnr.gov/hunting and click on the CWD reporting system link on the right. There, they can enter either their hunter identification number or the nine digit registration number on the deer tag. Results should be available in 2-3 weeks. The Iowa DNR is continuing to monitor for the always fatal disease with increased focus areas along the Nebraska border, northeast and north central Iowa, and Wayne, Appanoose, Davis, and Keokuk counties. New deer management zones were added in Allamakee, Clayton and Wayne counties this year to increase deer tissue samples in the area where chronic wasting disease has been confirmed in the wild herd and allow hunters an additional opportunity to go deer hunting. Hunters using a management zone license are required to provide a tissue sample and hunt within the zone boundaries. Licenses are available locally. More details are available at www.iowadnr.gov/cwd.

January antlerless season: The DNR has added an antlerless deer season January 11-27, 2019, in four counties: Allamakee, Clayton, Wayne and Appanoose. Licenses are available until the season ends, or the quotas fill, whichever comes first. Hunters may use a bow, muzzleloader, handgun, shotgun, straight wall cartridges or centerfire rifles shooting .24 caliber or larger in this season. Each of the participating counties has more than 1,000 antlerless licenses available.

Youth license: New this year – an unfilled youth deer season license is valid for the remaining deer seasons until filled. The youth hunter must follow the method of take for that season. The youth license is still a mentored license where they must hunt under the supervision of a licensed adult.

Help Us Stop Hunger – HUSH: Have an extra deer at the end of the hunt? Maybe you bought an extra tag, to hunt longer? Consider donating to Iowa’s HUSH program. HUSH (Help Us Stop Hunger) works with 66 participating lockers to provide high quality meat to needy Iowans, through the Food Bank of Iowa. Field dressed deer are skinned, de-boned and ground into two-pound packages…then distributed to local needy families. The program is funded by hunters, who pay a dollar surcharge with each deer tag purchase. HUSH has provided meat from nearly 74,000 deer to those who need it—nearly 3,800 last year. Processors receive $75 for their end of the work. The Food Bank of Iowa picks up $5, as it oversees distribution. Each locker will accept whole deer, asking the hunter to fill out a Hunter HUSH card. There is no fee paid at the locker. A list of participating lockers is available in the Iowa Hunting Regulations and online at www.iowahush.com.

Donated deer hides benefit disabled veterans: Hunters donated more than 3,300 deer hides to Elks Lodges across Iowa last year that were used by the Veterans Leather Program to make professionally-crafted leather gloves for veterans in wheelchairs, and turned in to leather used for therapy programs for recovering veterans. The Veterans Leather Program relies on the charity of hunters to donate their deer hides. Hunters willing to donate their hides are encouraged to contact the local Elks Lodge for drop off locations or visit www.elks.org to find the nearest lodge. The therapeutic kits and gloves are distributed at no cost to the veterans. Contact Lisa Widick at 208-360-6294 or lwidick@theperrychief.com for more information.

Don’t wait until the last minute to purchase deer licenses: Deer hunters are encouraged to avoid the last minute rush and buy their deer licenses soon. An estimated 60,000 deer hunters are expected to participate in each of the two shotgun seasons. Deer licenses are available at nearly 750 license vendors across the state.

The recent blast of arctic air is growing ice on lakes and ponds over much of Iowa. Anglers are starting to get out for the popular early ice fishing season. Joe Larscheid, chief of fisheries for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR), says “Many of us can’t wait to get out on the ice each winter. Ice fishing is a fun, inexpensive activity for anglers of all ages to get outdoors and avoid cabin fever.” The DNR recommends a minimum of four inches of clear ice for fishing and at least five inches for snowmobiles and ATVs.

“Check ice thickness as you make your way to your favorite fishing spot,” Larscheid said. “Ice conditions change constantly and its thickness can vary across the lake. Trust your instincts – if the ice does not look right, don’t go out.” Early ice offers an excellent chance for success.  If fish are finicky, cut a series of holes and spend 15 minutes at each hole. Use small baits and light line.

Safety Tips on the Ice

• No ice is 100 percent safe.
• New ice is usually stronger than old ice.
• Don’t go out alone – if the worst should happen, someone will be there to call for help or to help rescue.
• Let someone know where you are going and when you will return.
• Check ice thickness as you go out – there could be pockets of thin ice or places where ice recently formed.
• Avoid off-colored snow or ice. It is usually a sign of weakness.
• The insulating effect of snow slows down the freezing process.
• Bring along these basic items to help keep you safe: hand warmers, ice cleats to help prevent falls, ice picks (wear around your neck) to help you crawl out of the water if you fall in, a life jacket, a floating safety rope, a whistle to call for help, a basic first aid kit and extra dry clothes including a pair of gloves.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — American farmers still working to get out their remaining soybeans after a weather-plagued harvest season are struggling to figure out what to do with a record crop now their traditionally dominant export market is largely closed. Usually by this point in the year, 100-car trains filled with North Dakota soybeans would be moving to ports on the West Coast destined for China. But this year is different, after China all but stopped buying U.S. soybeans in response to President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs . Fearful of economic failure, farmers are frantically trying to determine how to store a potentially 1 billion-bushel surplus until it can be sold at a decent price. Farmers have been mostly patient with Trump and his plans to realign trade deals to improve U.S. interests, but the loss of markets is hitting their bank accounts hard.

“As I’ve heard many people say, you can’t pay the bills with patriotism,” said Grant Kimberley, an Iowa farmer and the market development director for the Iowa Soybean Association. “You’ve got to have money and right now we as an industry are a little short on that because we’ve had a major hit in our number one market and it’s been reflected in a major drop in prices.” North Dakota farmers who sell at the current cash price of around $7.20 a bushel do so at a loss given that the cost of production is about $8.50. Trump has created a one-time $12 billion program to compensate for the loss in trade, and soybean farmers are to get the largest share of the money. But even with payments from that fund , which amount to about 82 cents a bushel this year, they still fall short of breaking even. Another 82 cents may be approved next year if a trade agreement isn’t reached, the USDA has said.

Farmers have been struggling for five years as the cost of land, fertilizer, chemicals and seed have remained high, but net income has fallen. Some who rent their land or have accumulated high debt could be forced out of farming by the crisis. “Individually, we’ve got some problems out there,” said Chad Hart, an agricultural economist at Iowa State University. “This squeeze will be enough to put a few farmers out of business.” Farmers produced a record U.S. harvest of 4.6 billion bushels this year, but the USDA reports exports to China are down 94 percent from a year ago since Chinese companies were ordered to stop buying American soybeans and find other suppliers. U.S. soybean farm organizations have cultivated other markets, including Egypt, Argentina and Iran, and boosted sales to the European Union and Mexico. But that doesn’t make up for the gap left by the loss of the Chinese market.

Meanwhile, more beans are going into storage than usual, and this could have an impact on the price of the 2019 crop. “The real pressure will come in February and March when farmers are trying to bring in some cash … to pay off bank loans and operating loans for the 2018 crop,” said Josh Gackle, who grows soybeans, corn, wheat and barley near Kulm, North Dakota. He said bankers could hesitate to finance another year if soybeans are still selling at unprofitable prices. As bin space fills up, some farmers are storing beans inside bunkers covered with plastic wrap to keep moisture out, while others are storing them outside, on the ground, in 200- to 300-foot-long plastic bags. “We don’t (usually) see bean piles on the ground here in our part of Illinois. Grain bagging is something that has always taken place in the background, but boy, you do see a lot of grain bags this fall,” said Austin Rincker, an Illinois soybean and corn farmer near Moweaqua, about 35 miles southwest of Springfield.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Most of the state’s corn and soybean crop have been harvested ahead of a snowstorm that blanketed much of southern and eastern Iowa. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported Monday that 96 percent of Iowa’s corn crop had been harvested as of Sunday. While the percentage is even higher in northwest, north-central and central Iowa, 13 percent of corn remained to be harvested in southwest Iowa.

That statewide percentage is four days behind the five-year average. Iowa’s soybean harvest was 98 percent complete. That’s 12 days behind the five-year average.

Atlantic Parks and Recreation Dept. Director Seth Staashelm reports the roads inside Sunnyside Park are now closed for the season. The Park is still open to the public, but the roads are closed for the winter.

(Radio Iowa) — The Environmental Protection Commission has entered into a contract for a research project to examine if a wider view should be used to determine how things are thrown away. The D-N-R’s Tom Anderson says the law created in 1987 determined the success of what was recycled based on the weight of what went into landfills. “Weight is not necessarily the best measure of environmental impact. And it’s kind of what sustainable material management is looking at,” Anderson says, “”it’s looking at the environmental impacts from raw material extraction through the production, distribution, use and ultimately disposal.”

Anderson says the program created 30 years ago was appropriate for the time. “It was easy because all you needed was the weight — eventually all the landfills had scales — so the weight was an easy number to grasp. And then an easy number to use that and say we landfilled less than we did the previous year, our programs must be working,” according to Anderson. “That very well could be true, but environmentally we still don’t know if the actions we are doing here are better for the environment, or should we be doing alternative actions.”

He says looking beyond how much space something takes in the landfill could show that landfilling isn’t the best way to handle it. “If you look at it more holistically and look at it upstream so to speak — back to that raw material extraction — there may be more impacts to environment by recycling it than disposing it,” Anderson explains. Anderson says one example that has been studied is coffee containers — which can be metal cans, plastic cans or pouches. The costs for each container from when it was made to when it is thrown away were analyzed. He says you have energy and water and air emissions in the manufacture of the cans or pouches. And then when you look at distribution, the cans are heavier and bigger and the environmental impact is more because it takes more trucking to move them than it does the pouches.

He says all the factors showed them something. “You come to find that overall from start to finish the environmental impact is greater for the metal can than it is if you were to dispose of that pouch,” Anderson says. Anderson says the research project will establish a vision for Iowa waste management that considers environmental impacts and create a detailed plan to engage everyone in carrying out that vision. The effort will begin December 1st and Anderson says they hope to have it completed by September.