culling deer

Well its the time of season to cull deer in the city of Iowa City 18 miles south of me. I just got this information from the local news channel that the sharpshooters are culling 300 doe’s from the city limits of this town. The local news had film of the deer there walking across streets, along streets and ditches, eating browse from the trees in the front yards of homes etc. The 600 dollar price of eack deer culled is going to the new sharpshooters from the Des Moines area. The venison will be givin away to the needy. The new company wanted to do the culling now but the DNR wants them to do it in the middle of janurary after hunting season. It still beats me why they can’t let a few of those deer go to hunters buying a tag to hunt in the least people populated parts of town. 300 deer multiplyed by 600 a deer is $180,000. Maybe they are waiting until Janurary thinking that maybe some will get hit by cars, poached or just go away as to bring the price down… I Wonder why they couldn’t let just a few tags go to help pay for this expense, maybe even cull the herd enough to impress and change the minds of the unknowledgeable and sheepiest.

This post interested me, since I am finishing up writing an analysis of the overpopulation of deer in Iowa and ways to control them. I understand your feelings about letting some hunters go in and kill a few of the deer, but the reason they don’t do that is entirely a safety issue. Hiring a company such as White Buffalo Inc, who Iowa City has contracted in the past to remove deer, is a much safer method as they are professionals. I was surprised to read that they are using a different organization to cull the herd instead of White Buffalo to perform the actions. The reason I say that, is because in my research of the topic over the past 2 months, the information I got from White Buffalo is that it costs between $91 to $300 per deer. (Are you sure that the $600 per deer is accurate, it just seems really high compared to what I’ve researched)

I’m not trying to put down hunters by any means, I love deer hunting as much as the next guy, but any person in politics and government would be a fool to allow hunters in the city limits to kill some of the deer. There is way to much of a risk for property damage and personal injury. Sharpshooters can bait the deer and set up their blinds so that they are shooting in the safest possible direction. Noise is also a major complaint by citizens, and the sharpshooters can equip their rifles with suppressors which is something that hunters aren’t allowed to do.

I am going to post my paper on the site sometime within the next month(still have more changes to make to it).

This post interested me, since I am finishing up writing an analysis of the overpopulation of deer in Iowa and ways to control them. I understand your feelings about letting some hunters go in and kill a few of the deer, but the reason they don’t do that is entirely a safety issue. Hiring a company such as White Buffalo Inc, who Iowa City has contracted in the past to remove deer, is a much safer method as they are professionals. I was surprised to read that they are using a different organization to cull the herd instead of White Buffalo to perform the actions. The reason I say that, is because in my research of the topic over the past 2 months, the information I got from White Buffalo is that it costs between $91 to $300 per deer. (Are you sure that the $600 per deer is accurate, it just seems really high compared to what I’ve researched)

I’m not trying to put down hunters by any means, I love deer hunting as much as the next guy, but any person in politics and government would be a fool to allow hunters in the city limits to kill some of the deer. There is way to much of a risk for property damage and personal injury. Sharpshooters can bait the deer and set up their blinds so that they are shooting in the safest possible direction. Noise is also a major complaint by citizens, and the sharpshooters can equip their rifles with suppressors which is something that hunters aren’t allowed to do.

I am going to post my paper on the site sometime within the next month(still have more changes to make to it).

skippy, i’ve been listening to the iowa city report for a few years now and they were using a group from out east to do the culling. At that time it was announced that the price for the culling per head was $600.00 if im not mistaken. Im assuming the new guys in the Des Moines area will be about the same price as i’ve rarely seen prices go down in years past. If your imformation is accurate i’d sure like to see your information on pricing because the talk here is in the range i’ve said. I understand politics and thats why im a little disturbed about the iowa city area not allowing hunters to cull the deer when they do it here in the cedar rapids area and thier only 18 miles apart. Its a college town with lots of negative thought about hunting the deer so i know thats part of it. I’d sure like to hear the whole story and your research to fill me in more as i don’t get enough information from the local news and don’t know if i’d be told in complete accuracy from the dnr. Seems it would be so simple to just let tags go to cull the deer like they do in town here. Let me know of any accurate guidelines and prices if you can, i’d like to know for sure about the pricing.

skippy, i’ve been listening to the iowa city report for a few years now and they were using a group from out east to do the culling. At that time it was announced that the price for the culling per head was $600.00 if im not mistaken. Im assuming the new guys in the Des Moines area will be about the same price as i’ve rarely seen prices go down in years past. If your imformation is accurate i’d sure like to see your information on pricing because the talk here is in the range i’ve said. I understand politics and thats why im a little disturbed about the iowa city area not allowing hunters to cull the deer when they do it here in the cedar rapids area and thier only 18 miles apart. Its a college town with lots of negative thought about hunting the deer so i know thats part of it. I’d sure like to hear the whole story and your research to fill me in more as i don’t get enough information from the local news and don’t know if i’d be told in complete accuracy from the dnr. Seems it would be so simple to just let tags go to cull the deer like they do in town here. Let me know of any accurate guidelines and prices if you can, i’d like to know for sure about the pricing.

The White Buffalo Company is the one from out east that they have used. Where I got the $91-$300 range is what they have on their website in the area that they have different deer management strategies listed. Perhaps they need to change they’re data on the website if it is higher than that, and maybe I’ll need to look for information from newspapers about the cost of culling the deer in Iowa City and make some changes to the paper.

Thanks for starting this thread, it’s gonna help me write a better paper if i know that the info White Buffalo has posted isnt the same as what was being charged in Iowa City. Mossydan, if you can find the name of the company out of Des Moines, can you let me know so that I can try to get some info on them and add that to my paper. Thanks.

The White Buffalo Company is the one from out east that they have used. Where I got the $91-$300 range is what they have on their website in the area that they have different deer management strategies listed. Perhaps they need to change they’re data on the website if it is higher than that, and maybe I’ll need to look for information from newspapers about the cost of culling the deer in Iowa City and make some changes to the paper.

Thanks for starting this thread, it’s gonna help me write a better paper if i know that the info White Buffalo has posted isnt the same as what was being charged in Iowa City. Mossydan, if you can find the name of the company out of Des Moines, can you let me know so that I can try to get some info on them and add that to my paper. Thanks.

Skippy, i’ll get on the horn today and try to find out what i can then post the results as soon as i get them.

Skippy, i’ll get on the horn today and try to find out what i can then post the results as soon as i get them.

When I lived in Iowa I followed this pretty close. I was amazed at the extent these guys went to remove the deer with minimal disturbance to people in the city. Pretty amazing stuff. In and out in the dark, drop them on the spot, silencers, the whole nine yards. I am not sure if this was the White Buffalo group at that time but I remember thinking the same thing you guys. Why not let the bow hunters do it?

When I lived in Iowa I followed this pretty close. I was amazed at the extent these guys went to remove the deer with minimal disturbance to people in the city. Pretty amazing stuff. In and out in the dark, drop them on the spot, silencers, the whole nine yards. I am not sure if this was the White Buffalo group at that time but I remember thinking the same thing you guys. Why not let the bow hunters do it?

I hear you guys on wishing the bow hunters could do this.

However:

I did a home loan for one of these “snipers” here in Minneapolis. The guy probably shoots 200 deer a year. Some of them were outstanding trophy bucks.

I asked him the same question. It is all about political correctness. This guy went into parks at night, in Minneapolis and was shooting deer all night. The concern about having bow hunters do this, is having a deer crawl up into someones yard to expire…….Can you imagine the outcry! We have protesters complaining about special deer tag drawings in the metro area where there are no homes……….The Army Reserve land, up by the Federal Ammo factory comes to mind here……..

I hear you guys on wishing the bow hunters could do this.

However:

I did a home loan for one of these “snipers” here in Minneapolis. The guy probably shoots 200 deer a year. Some of them were outstanding trophy bucks.

I asked him the same question. It is all about political correctness. This guy went into parks at night, in Minneapolis and was shooting deer all night. The concern about having bow hunters do this, is having a deer crawl up into someones yard to expire…….Can you imagine the outcry! We have protesters complaining about special deer tag drawings in the metro area where there are no homes……….The Army Reserve land, up by the Federal Ammo factory comes to mind here……..

I just got off the phone with a dnr officer at the coralville wildlife unit, the number is 1-319-857-4645 and the officer there told me the price of the deer per animal thats to be culled. He said theres a $200.00 minimum on each deer and the average price is between $300.00 to $400.00 per deer after the animal is processed and then the meat is givin to the public. Two years ago there was speculation that the price could go as high as $600.00 on a local television broadcast. When asked how many deer were they going to cull he said thats still up in the air but the 300 number is a starting point, maybe less maybe more. Probably the fact of how many deer are a nusiance verses the price too. One of the reasons he gave for this is they don’t want to allow culling when then deer season is underway because the hunters chase the deer into the city limits where they wouldn’t be able to get and accurate assement of incity deer populations. When they move back out of the city limits when the seasons over they get a more accurate assement of the incity population then can get an accurate idea of how many deer to cull. He said that white buffalo wants to cull the buck population too and to him that didn’t make any sense because the doe’s are the ones who control the population not the bucks. Im kinda wondering what pull the sharpshooters have when its the dnr whos paying the bill when they set down at the bargining table. I think the dnr should have total control over what sex gets culled and it wouldn’t be up to the sharpshooters to decide this, after all they are working for the dnr and are paying the bill, so this is still up in the air too. He did agree with the thought to let some of the deer go to incity tags but said its the influance from the anti hunters and (thier) money to back them up that creates the problems for culling by tags. The dnr wants them to cull after deer season in janurary and they want to cull in march. When i said that the local television station reported a new company from the Des Moines area he said he haden’t heard that and that must be the latest but didn’t have any accurate information on them. My telling him was the first he’d heard of a new culling group. I will post any new information as it i find it.

I just got off the phone with a dnr officer at the coralville wildlife unit, the number is 1-319-857-4645 and the officer there told me the price of the deer per animal thats to be culled. He said theres a $200.00 minimum on each deer and the average price is between $300.00 to $400.00 per deer after the animal is processed and then the meat is givin to the public. Two years ago there was speculation that the price could go as high as $600.00 on a local television broadcast. When asked how many deer were they going to cull he said thats still up in the air but the 300 number is a starting point, maybe less maybe more. Probably the fact of how many deer are a nusiance verses the price too. One of the reasons he gave for this is they don’t want to allow culling when then deer season is underway because the hunters chase the deer into the city limits where they wouldn’t be able to get and accurate assement of incity deer populations. When they move back out of the city limits when the seasons over they get a more accurate assement of the incity population then can get an accurate idea of how many deer to cull. He said that white buffalo wants to cull the buck population too and to him that didn’t make any sense because the doe’s are the ones who control the population not the bucks. Im kinda wondering what pull the sharpshooters have when its the dnr whos paying the bill when they set down at the bargining table. I think the dnr should have total control over what sex gets culled and it wouldn’t be up to the sharpshooters to decide this, after all they are working for the dnr and are paying the bill, so this is still up in the air too. He did agree with the thought to let some of the deer go to incity tags but said its the influance from the anti hunters and (thier) money to back them up that creates the problems for culling by tags. The dnr wants them to cull after deer season in janurary and they want to cull in march. When i said that the local television station reported a new company from the Des Moines area he said he haden’t heard that and that must be the latest but didn’t have any accurate information on them. My telling him was the first he’d heard of a new culling group. I will post any new information as it i find it.

Nice thread MossyDan. Gary hit it on the head..even here in Iron Mountain, Mi with relatively low population density. The city opted for a company from Milwaukee…charged 175$ per deer. shot about 200. The deer population came right back in about 5 yrs…they have to do it again soon.

Nice thread MossyDan. Gary hit it on the head..even here in Iron Mountain, Mi with relatively low population density. The city opted for a company from Milwaukee…charged 175$ per deer. shot about 200. The deer population came right back in about 5 yrs…they have to do it again soon.

Here is a Spike buck I “culled” with the old .356 Winchester Thursday. It had a previous wound on its back so I called it a mercy killing. I hope its as tender as it looks!

Here is a Spike buck I “culled” with the old .356 Winchester Thursday. It had a previous wound on its back so I called it a mercy killing. I hope its as tender as it looks!

Heck ya Tom, thats the right size for great eating, nice and tender plus he didn’t just go off somewhere and die wasted from the previous wound.

Heck ya Tom, thats the right size for great eating, nice and tender plus he didn’t just go off somewhere and die wasted from the previous wound.

Thanks for putting that phone number on here. I might try giving it a call early nest week and maybe get a little bit better information for the paper. Who was the Officer that you talked to?

Thanks for putting that phone number on here. I might try giving it a call early nest week and maybe get a little bit better information for the paper. Who was the Officer that you talked to?

Hey Skip, he told me his name but i don’t remember it. He talked with another officer at the same time I was talking to him and it sounded like both of them knew the answers but they just confided in each other to make sure what they were saying was accurate. I’d say eigther one of them would give the answers you need if one or the other isn’t there. It sounds like that when you call you’ll get the information they know at the local level. Maybe to get as a complete of a story as possible give them a call then call the main dnr headquarters in Des Moines as they probably give the final yes-no to issues. Maybe they can even send you some paper work on this state wide subject, thier procceses and train of thought to establish what and how they make decesions or multi state results that they might have inquired about and received from other states, information on thier decesions on culling deer and thier results also, to your address when they find out that its for your own personal report. Maybe you can get a pretty through breakdown of our state and neighboring states and thier policies, procedures, in field tests and results. What would be nice is if you could get some procedures maybe that isn’t necessarily public information but that they might be willing to give it to you. I’ll bet they swap procedures and results with other states and this would be the information that they might let go of to the right person, especially if your thinking about going to work for the DNR after college. If it were me i’d make sure to tell them that i wasen’t an anti hunter and its for your own personal thesis, they might let go of more information. Maybe surf or call the neighboring dnr offices and ask for information or where you might obtain it, hope this helps you out…Later

Hey Skip, he told me his name but i don’t remember it. He talked with another officer at the same time I was talking to him and it sounded like both of them knew the answers but they just confided in each other to make sure what they were saying was accurate. I’d say eigther one of them would give the answers you need if one or the other isn’t there. It sounds like that when you call you’ll get the information they know at the local level. Maybe to get as a complete of a story as possible give them a call then call the main dnr headquarters in Des Moines as they probably give the final yes-no to issues. Maybe they can even send you some paper work on this state wide subject, thier procceses and train of thought to establish what and how they make decesions or multi state results that they might have inquired about and received from other states, information on thier decesions on culling deer and thier results also, to your address when they find out that its for your own personal report. Maybe you can get a pretty through breakdown of our state and neighboring states and thier policies, procedures, in field tests and results. What would be nice is if you could get some procedures maybe that isn’t necessarily public information but that they might be willing to give it to you. I’ll bet they swap procedures and results with other states and this would be the information that they might let go of to the right person, especially if your thinking about going to work for the DNR after college. If it were me i’d make sure to tell them that i wasen’t an anti hunter and its for your own personal thesis, they might let go of more information. Maybe surf or call the neighboring dnr offices and ask for information or where you might obtain it, hope this helps you out…Later

If I remember correctly when they started this proccess a few years back White Buffelo shooters were getting $700.per deer! I can see why they might look for a cheaper group to take over . If the DNR could get past the lost revenue they could issue more free doe tags outside city limits and allow hunters to help. But I have always thought Iowa City has more money than brains. This town leans pretty far to the left politically so opposition is usually pretty loud against the thinning. That is till they hit one of their cute little deer with their suv or Lexus :devil.

If I remember correctly when they started this proccess a few years back White Buffelo shooters were getting $700.per deer! I can see why they might look for a cheaper group to take over . If the DNR could get past the lost revenue they could issue more free doe tags outside city limits and allow hunters to help. But I have always thought Iowa City has more money than brains. This town leans pretty far to the left politically so opposition is usually pretty loud against the thinning. That is till they hit one of their cute little deer with their suv or Lexus :devil.

Ya Dave i agree, not slamming any of them but im sure they’ve got thier excuses of why they shouldn’t be thinned out even after a serious accident of someone in thier family. I’ve seen a couple of the more bad accidents while retrieveing the road kills while going to the accident sceene with my next door nieghbor who was on duty as deputy sherriff. I know thier so strong headed that even a serious shot of reality won’t change some minds.

Ya Dave i agree, not slamming any of them but im sure they’ve got thier excuses of why they shouldn’t be thinned out even after a serious accident of someone in thier family. I’ve seen a couple of the more bad accidents while retrieveing the road kills while going to the accident sceene with my next door nieghbor who was on duty as deputy sherriff. I know thier so strong headed that even a serious shot of reality won’t change some minds.

Very interesting topic.Iowa deer herds are at a all time high as I write this.The urban population thing is going on all over the state.I work in Cherokee which is in the NW part of the state and I’ve seen deer in town many different times.I remember the days you were lucky to get a doe tag during our shotgun seasons.Now you can get extra doe tags for bow and gun seasons.
Mr.Gursky,a big thanks goes out to you for taking a deer that had a previous injury.
Ryan Hale