Iowa Night Hunting

pwking

pwking

Member
This is the response from the Iowa DNR about using lights to hunt coyotes at night. These damn deer poachers screw everything up for the rest of us.
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This is in response to your recent e-mail to Director Jeff Vonk
regarding your request to change the law and allow the use of artificial
lights at night for hunting coyotes. This response is a joint effort
from myself and our Wildlife Bureau Chief, Dale Garner. The views
expressed in this response represent both Law Enforcement and Wildlife.

We respect your interest to hunt coyotes at night, however we feel that
additional use of lights for night hunting would not out-weigh the
negative impacts on our ability to curtail illegal deer hunting. While
changing the law to allow the use of lights at night for coyote hunting
would help some coyote hunters, it would also serve as the excuse for
every illegal deer poacher out there stopped by an officer. Our
officers spend an enormous amount of time in the fall checking out
individuals using lights at night, some are just viewing wildlife, some
are looking for livestock, and others are poaching wildlife (primarily
deer and raccoon). By legalizing the use of lights for coyote hunters
we would only make our enforcement job more difficult and we take away a
very valuable tool currently used by Conservation Officers.

The mood amongst legislators currently is not to allow deer poachers an
easy excuse for their night activities as exhibited by a change last
session. Legislators greatly increased the amount of civil damages that
deer poachers must now pay when prosecuted for illegally taking
deer...the top amount is now $20,000 (up from the previous top of
$4,000). This sends a clear message to us that legislators don't want
deer poaching to increase and they clearly want officers to do all that
is possible to catch and prosecute those individuals. By legalizing the
use of lights we take a large step backwards in the fight to stop
illegal deer hunting.

Currently, coyote hunters can utilize light gathering scopes on
firearms and aided with a good moonlit night (even better with some snow
cover), and the use of electronic calls, this method can be quite
effective in harvesting coyotes. Night-time coyote hunters can even
utilze night vision equiipment (some of which is fairly cheap) which
also makes them much more effective. We don't feel the need to change
what we already believe is an excellent hunting by artificial light law
and we don't believe this change would greatly increase the number of
coyotes harvested. By legalizing this "harmless activity" we do feel
that there would be a great increase in the amount of illegal activity.
Any attempt to change our current law would be met with great resistance
from our agency and our Officers' Association.

We do appreciate your comments and want to thank you for your concern
about predator hunting in Iowa.

Lowell G. Joslin, Chief
Law Enforcement Bureau
Iowa Department of Natural Resources
502 E. 9th. Street
Des Moines, Iowa 50319-0034
phone (515) 281-5919
fax (515) 281-6794

It always drives me nuts when something is made illegal to prevent another illegal act. The deer poachers are going to do it anyway.
 
If Iowa is like Oklahoma, there are a lot of deer around. I think the anti poaching argument is outdated. I am not for poaching by any means but I do not feel that the deer herd is threatened anymore. They do not need the protection that they did when we were trying to build a herd. Poachers can still be caught but legal hunting at night should be doable without everyone thinking you are spotlighting deer. I think we are spending too much money trying to protect the deer and would not miss a few that got poached. I don't think any more poachers would get away with it than are getting by with it now. My 2 cents.
 
This stuff really gets me going. Minnesota is in the same boat.

I'm thinking that if there were a few honest predator hunters out there at night, maybe they'd be able to help police those potential deer poachers.

And, why we should be held back and punished because of poachers.... Well, that's just nuts.

Randy
 
As much as I miss night hunting (I used to live in Illinois, where we could do it), I have to agree with DNR's statement.

Their statement really hits home, as I was out securing more permission to call land today. I was driving on one of my normal country roads and found 2 deer carcasses in the ditch, no less than 2 days old. Both were caped out and had their backstraps removed. The rest was dumped for waste. Obviously the work of poachers. I felt sick at the site, as hunters are getting a bad name, in the press and with farmers.

My 2 cents...
 
Randy and Lonnie, you couldn't be more right. I will pass that along to the DNR and forward my email and the DNR's email to the state reps. and state senators in the Natural Resources Committees.

I have had favorable feedback from the representatives - but I hear that the head of the DNR, Jeff Vonk, has has quite a bit of pull with Governor Vilsack.

I'll keep ya'll posted.

TTEbee - As you know, the Iowa deer population is not something to be worried about. I imagine with real hunters out at night, we would be able to catch the poachers much easier. It would be very easy to tell who is poaching and who is coyote hunting. I doubt poachers will take the time to sit in one spot for a half hour and wait for the deer to come to them. There will be deer poached, but there will be many more poachers caught.

jk
 
poachers arnt hunters, they are criminals. So why should any hunter be punished for a criminals crime? hunters are not the criminals, i bet 95% of pochers dont even have a hunting lic.
 
PW, I pushed this issue last year with a friend who was on the DNR Board. I have taken him calling on several occasions with moonlight and snow. He didn't think it would fly with officers as implied in the response you received.
Here in southeast Iowa there isn't alot of support for "protecting deer numbers". There is support for nailing the rack poachers. In order to get the DNR to consider any change I believe it would require some creative ideas to generate income for the DNR, history here tells me that most of thier decisions are based on the dollars that can be generated.
It burns me to no end that they use the deer excuse for this case. The truth is they are only concerned about loss of license sales if the big buck harvests were to decline, not many are willing to pay to hunt trophy does! I guess they may consider that enough antlerless deer are harvested with vehicles to balance things out, insurance companies pick up the tab and body shops gain from the extra business.
I think our best shot would be to discuss ideas with officers and board members and express our willingness to assist in nailing the poachers. I do know that it will take a coordinated effort from us and some of the other sportsman groups to ever convince them to allow lights at night. If you have any ideas or need support to pursue it further count me in!
 
Yup this one knots my ass hairs, too. How about this: Allow the use of night vision with infrared lights, offer a $1,000 tax free reward upon conviction for every poacher caught/turned in by legitimate night hunters (or any law abiding citizen). Tack the $1,000 onto the state's fine for poaching so it costs nothing for the state to multiply its "poacher observers" by 100 fold. Not sure how many predator hunters there are in Iowa, but I bet 95% of us would do our best to make poaching a very high risk endeavor.

Lessee now, turn in 8 poachers = $8,000, the price of a Raptor NV scope or a good Gen IV monocular. Yeah, I like that idea. Good for the economy, too.

As far as Vilesack . . . he, his wife, and his friends, have demonstrated that they are neither hunter nor firearm friendly. We are not likely to see meaningful improvements until he goes back to chasing ambulances.
 
how about this with all the preditor hunters out there think of all the extra eyes with cell phones in nevada i can spot light and i reall have to be shure of what im looking at last year i was convinced i was lined up on a coyote it was eaven comming in when it winnnied at me wheww so there are some draw backs.
 
Folks its not about the food deer being poached... its that poachers will be after the bucks the big ones here in Iowa... fact we can use IR scopes us a great clarification... going to order one tomorrow...
 
It states that you can not use any projected light. This would include scopes with an internal IR divice or an external one. I would have bought one of the cheaper yet good scopes that utilize these but have to go to the NV scopes that are "starlight" or themal. Only way we have a chance to change this is to start a petition and submit it. I would say license and charge a fee to hunt at night. This would make inforcement easier and give them more revenue that hopefully would offset any loss from poaching. I would easily pay, say 50 a year for a license. It would easily save anywher from 1 to 5 grand in expesive NV costs. Have talked to a DNR officer who said the petition is how the snowmobilers got things changed. Don't know if this is an apples to apples comparison but I think we should try this. Is their a way to start one here?
 
I and other petitioners were able to get the night hunting season in IL extended by 4 weeks using a standard form letter that individual petitioners could copy and paste into an email message. All you need to do is get email addresses of those you wish to contact. In IL we sent the email to the DNR director and furbearer biologist, with a copy to someone (me) who could count and keep track of how many petitions were sent in. I started it on this forum and included a few other forums. I also had a post on my business website. In the end we had around 50 petitions sent in so it really doesn't take a lot to get them moving in a different direction. I would suggest that someone take the initiative to get things started and see them through to the end. Whomever sent the letter that the Director responded to (initial post here) would be a good choice since they have already started the dialogue with those in control. Kevin
 
I know they used to use airplanes at night to spot poachers. So anybody using a light at night is suspect to poaching which could tie up law enforcement on legal coyote hunters if we could use lights. I wonder how Nebraska handles night hunting with lights?
 
If you're shining a light in Nebraska you are still shining a target for the GFP to see. They will usually check it out and make sure you are not shining from a vehicle. If you are on foot like you're supposed to be they will check your license and shoot the breeze for a bit before leaving you alone. The biggest thing is using a light from a vehicle. A lot of coon hunters get nipped.
 
If you're shining a light in Nebraska you are still shining a target for the GFP to see. They will usually check it out and make sure you are not shining from a vehicle. If you are on foot like you're supposed to be they will check your license and shoot the breeze for a bit before leaving you alone. The biggest thing is using a light from a vehicle. A lot of coon hunters get nipped.
 
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