For Hunters
Iowa Whitetails Forever sounds like a simple enough goal. In reality the quality of the Iowa deer hunting experience is threatened each year with legislative proposals that if passed could be the loose thread that starts the unraveling of Iowa deer hunting tradition. Nearly every year there is a push to increase the number of nonresident deer tags or to allow nonresident land owners the same privileges resident land owners receive with regards to deer tags.
Iowa hunters have been and must continue to be an invaluable resource in the management of the deer herd at a level that is considered healthy and appropriate by producers, landowners, sportsmen and to some degree other business interests affected by deer. In other words, the Iowa deer hunter is a resource that needs to be supported and maintained correctly so their numbers do not diminish to a level that we no longer can manage our deer herd. Access to hunting land across the state has become more difficult with each passing year and there is clearly a trend towards the commercialization of the sport. We understand some outfitting, leasing the hunting rights of land or the purchasing of land for recreational use is always going to take place, these activities are never going to go away. It will remain our goal to support all hunting organizations, nonresident hunters, resident hunters and any group that supports the wisdom of fighting efforts of narrow minded special interest groups to move toward the privatization of the whitetail deer natural resource.
We hope to prevent legislation that would lead to the decline of the Iowa Hunter. This would include any legislation that would accelerate or promote the leasing/purchasing of large tracts of land for further commercialization of the sport, which will impede access from the Iowa hunter. We will also support any legislation that would sustain the Iowa hunter, Iowa’s biggest hammer in the toolbox of deer management. What happens to the Iowa DNR’s ability to manage and make management decisions of one of our greatest natural resources if they can’t sell enough tags to accomplish the needed harvest? It is critical that we as hunters understand the tasks that we need to accomplish. We need to continue to harvest does where additional quotas have been established. We also need to build our relationships with land owners and producers. Where they have a need for assistance with deer depredation harvest we need to step up to the plate and get it done for them. When it is time to communicate with our legislators to ensure they are well informed of the issues that are of concern to the Iowa deer hunter, we need to be sure they hear us and the more “us” there are the better we are heard.
So join us by registering today to guarantee that we have an ever increasing voice and that we will have Iowa Whitetails Forever.
