MASON CITY – The City of Mason City will hold a special urban deer management hunt starting September 17, 2016.
The intent of this special hunt, city officials say, is to reduce deer damage to property within city limits and reduce the number of car-deer collisions in town. This is the first year that the city has partnered with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to have a Deer Management Zone (DMZ) hunt. The City of Mason City has allowed urban bow hunting in the past for hunters willing to use their statewide deer license.
The urban hunt will function a little differently this year, according to a document released by the city. There will be fifty antlerless DMZ licenses available to Iowa resident hunters for use only within the city limits of Mason City. Each hunter must possess a State of Iowa hunting license with habitat fee and have a Mason City DMZ deer license. Regular licenses are not valid within the Mason City DMZ. Licenses must be purchased from Kramer Ace Hardware, 440 S Illinois Avenue, Mason City.
Proficiency testing is also a requirement for this special hunt. The Mohawk Archery Club, 840 1/2 12th Street NW in Mason City will certify hunters on a proficiency test that meets this requirement. Proficiency testing will be completed on August 24 (5:30-7:30 p.m.) and August 27 (9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.) at the club for $15/hunter. To sign up for a time slot for proficiency testing, please email Melinda Severs at the Mason City Police Department (msevers@masoncity.net). If you can’t attend on these dates, contact Chris Rish (641-430-5498) to arrange another time.
Hunters should bring copies of their hunting license, their Mason City DMZ deer tag, and their passing score on the proficiency test to the Mason City Police Department. A completed urban hunting application will need to be submitted with these documents. Applications are available at the Mason City Police Department, 78 South Georgia Avenue, or by e-mail from Melinda Severs. After reviewing the documents, an urban bow hunting permit will be issued by MCPD.
Hunters must abide by the rules of the property owner, in addition to all Iowa DNR rules and special zone rules covering the bow hunting of deer. Any violation of the above rules may result in the revocation of privileges or criminal charges, as appropriate.
The main goal of the hunt is to reduce the deer herd by harvesting female deer, or does. The special hunt will begin September 17, 2016 and end January 10, 2017. The special hunt in city limits will remain open even during the dates of the regular gun seasons that take place outside of city limits. All DMZ licenses are for antlerless deer only.
Reporting: Deer hunters will be required to bring harvested deer to the Mason City Police Department for inspection and to report where the deer was taken. Check in must occur within six hours of harvest. In addition, hunters must register their deer harvest with IDNR by any of the following three options: 1) The online harvest reporting system at www.iowadnr.gov is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 2) The telephone harvest is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and the toll free number is printed on the antlerless license. 3) Hunters may report through an ELSI license vendor during business hours. All deer harvested in a deer management zone hunt must be sight checked and reported to IDNR.
Police say the dates for hunting within the City Parks of Mason City have not yet been established. They say they will announce when those dates have been set.
By the way, I’m the only person who spoke against this to the Mason City City Council. No one else did. So I kinda have a little bit more say on this issue than your regular Anonymous blogger.
No, you don’t have any more say. Where does your sense of entitlement come from? Just because you spoke out against sound management practices?
Deer like other animals have instincts not emotions. Nature is beautiful and cruel. You must not have seen the video of a deer eating a young bird. It’s out there, google it. Deer are not just vegan’s, they can be omnivores.
Animals as humans, will do a lot of uncharacteristic behaviors when placed in survival situations. It doesn’t mean it’s the norm or dominant tendency. We all have instincts and automations. Being forced out of bed in the morning to automatically head to the shower to clean up and brush your teeth, is an automation imposed on us by society’s timeline for whsn school starts. Our instinct tells us that hurting animals is wrong. Our brutish insensitive care givers may condition us away from the natural instinct to preserve life. Some may have instincts to kill. I’m not one of them. So i try to condition those who do to protect the objects of their dark desire.
It really boils down to what type of human you are. One who exploits or one who protects the weak. Deer, as most animals, are weaker creatures than man. They are at our mercy whether humans let them live in peace or to kill them. We have been erroneously trained or led to believe that because the animal world hunts and preys upon one another we should too, and that simply isn’t true. What separates us from the animal world is our ability to engineer our environment at a highly complex level. Medical evidence points to the benefits of plant based diets, so to ignore this and return to the animal world is to act against our higher evolved progress for critically thinking. Hunters are a throwback to earlier times. It’s unnecessary in today’s world.
By the way Matt, the picture of Bambi with the Ready, Aim, Fire
under it just cracks me up… NICE WORK!!!
NIT = “News & Entertainment” 🙂
Why don’t you make it only for kids to learn the art of hunting and also include handicap people that can’t regularly get out to hunt? Capable people can go and hunt the proper way.
The art of killing you mean? Ending life. Lording over another creature and declaring yourself it’s master? I appreciate your idea, just not the activity.
STFU. We do have dominion over all the animals. Oh that’s right you are a Buddhist and a fist fighter. But STFU anyway. Yes.
Cuz ur Bible tells you so. How quaint. Say your prayers before beddy time.
Deer is good protein and tastes better than lettuce and cucumbers.
Prions lurk in deer meat…as they do in all meat. IT’s about adjusting your taste buds. And once you begin seeing animals as sentient beings and not objects for your exploitation and stomach you will understand them to be capable of a wide array of human emotions and motivations. They care for their young. They help each other when sick and injured, they cry when they are hurt, or when their friends or family die. It’s too bad you don’t take time to understand the deer rather than just prey upon them. They are majestic and wonderful creatures.
Anyone can buy one of these licenses. If it was limited to kids and the handicapped not all the licenses would be sold and the problem of too many deer would persist. Hunters must pass an archery proficiency test to prove they have the skill to handle a bow.
Will TONTO be there ?
Tie up the dog – lock the family indoors – its caseys crazy days. Should have this holloweenie day – when else would you dress up like a boob and spend 200 bucks to get sexual satisfaction.
What the heck are you talking about?
Entertainment I guess – When their all gone they can have a zoo shoot.
These hunts are lobbist political gatherings by rich insurance companies for monetary savings. Surprised there are any wild species around with all that GMO farmer friendly spraying not to speak of the demorat geo engineering spraying of human beings -okay to spray demorats in my book -or cook the books clintonites.
The city needs a urban goose hunt, there are so many and are causing so many problems.
Probably not a bad idea at all.
Chinese restaurant owners in North Iowa have been secretly and successfully harvesting neighborhood feral cats for years. Turn them loose and enjoy the daily specials at bargain prices.
This is all fun and games until some innocent citizen gets shot by some idiot yahoo! But we all know MC isn’t the brightest crayons in the box.
Does anyone here know where almost all the money for wildlife habitat development comes from? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?
So the 6 am costume party at Casey’s comes early this year…
Can’t wait…. Why is it when they got the blaze orange costume or camouflage on they all act like they are John Friggen Wayne as they buy donuts.. Is it just me or has anyone else noticed this phenomenon….
I can see it now 3000 Elmer Fudds hit the field, 7000 rounds fired…
Final tally 10 dead Deere, 4 dead cows, 1 horse, 42 stop signs, 17 stop ahead signs, 3 houses and 4 garages…
Dick Cheney will be there.
Uhhh, yahh this is an archery only hunt. You wont see any elmer fudds with bandoleros of bullets across their chest. In fact you probably won’t see any of this type of hunter at all.
Forget the deer. Hunt the invasive species from Shitcago .
Please
Great idea. Throw in the “D” Boys as well.
These vermin should be hunted to near extinction then the state should pay a $200 bounty on everyone killed after that… Insurance is higher here than it should be because of those stupid things… Oh and by the way the meat tastes like shit… And no I don’t care how you cook it.. If that crap was any good, don’t you think all these farmers would raise deer instead of cattle…
Kill them all!!!!!!
bait deer with tasty treats
poison said treats
no more deer
yay!
Kill them all and the Geese too.
These types of urban deer management programs have been very successful in other Iowa communities. I know of people who have participated in programs similar to this one in other areas of the state and the results are beneficial to not only the city, insurance companies and local property owners, but to local food banks as well.
Go Vegan
^^^ says cabbage for brains.
People in cities absolutely don’t understand why we can’t let all the deer live. I have a friend from VA who has a fit about all hunting and cannot comprehend the need for wildlife management. She thinks death from old age or starvation is preferable to being culled by a quick death.
Deer would never starve…unless farmers continue plowing up all their habitat. The only good argument pertains to motor vehicle accidents, and I favor creating wildlife overpasses versus murdering otherwise healthy animals. It’s going to take thought and ingenuity for sure, but killing (culling) is not morally acceptable.
I would tell you to go educate yourself on modern deer herd management written by wildlife biologists, you know the scientists who study and know about such things, but I will guess you don’t really want to hear that, but deer depredation is real.
Deer overpasses? What makes you think the deer will take the overpasses. Over passes work in areas, typically in the west, with species which have known migration routes, but deer don’t migrate and they don’t consistently follow a route.
I would tell you to educate yourself by watching Vegan propaganda videos which show tame deer interacting affectionately with other animal pets and humans. Deer want to live just like every other creature. Switch your thinking, and start seeing them as sentient beings who think, feel and love, and you’ll start thinking in new ways to help them. I said it’s going to take ingenuity and good design to solve the road highway collision issue…and that is really the only argument deer cullers have. The other arguments are specious and speciesist. And it’s not just deer that we see laying dead on the side of the road…many species are killed every day and it breaks my heart to see them lying mutilated on side of road. It starts by a change of heart and mind. The rest will come.
Boohoo. A deer is dead on the road. what about my truck that was almost totaled? Should I send you the repair bill or are you just on of them bleeding hearts. Kill em all and make jerky out of em.
Agreed! It’s always kill, kill, kill………I would rather live among a herd of deer then 9/10ths of the people here….
To the self confessed literary genius:
Definition of propaganda: Ideas or statements that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, a government, etc.
…better luck next time.
Not so fast. There can be positive propaganda as well as negative propaganda. Propaganda is whatever people put out to influence populations of people. Joseph Goebbels was the Nazi propagandist, but PETA, Earth Liberation Front, and Animal Liberation Front are just as capable of putting out their own propaganda. Just so happens that I agree with the latter 3.
So you’re telling someone to “educate” themselves by watching what you refer to as propaganda. Okay, yeah, got it.
Propaganda as in to Propagate: spread and promote (an idea, theory, etc.) widely. “the French propagated the idea that the English were violent and gluttonous drunkards” synonyms: spread, disseminate, communicate, make known, promulgate, circulate, broadcast, publicize, proclaim, preach, promote…
–
I don’t see this as being as bad as you imply it to be. Yes, there can be bad propagation, and hence bad propaganda, but there can be good propaganda and good propagation. Brushing your teeth for example. Is that good or bad propaganda put out by the American Dental Association?
Is there no end to the amount of stuff you don’t know shit about but continue to act like you do? Never mind, I answered my own question.