Interest in trophy antlers is helping to drive a two-decade increase in deer poaching in Iowa. The reasons behind this type of lawlessness have changed, say IDNR officials, and it seems as if it's increasingly taking place in areas in which poachers once hesitated to commit their depredations. Photo by Duncan Dobie

"Quick! Duck behind a tree!" Dave yelled as a beam of light swung toward us. Peering from behind a big oak, I watched the light sweep across the field. It came from a battered pickup moving slowly along Otis Road just outside Cedar Rapids.

Dave and I were on an evening hike, returning to our car just after dark. The poacher had no clue that we were in the woods. Fortunately, no deer were in the field, and no shots came our way.

The incident happened 20 years ago. The poacher was well known among city police and local conservation officers. His background included a smattering of arrests for various serious crimes. They knew he was using a spotlight and rifle to kill deer. They also knew that he was shooting any deer he could and selling them for $50 apiece to a tavern that used the meat to make "beef stew." Officers were never in the right place at the right time to catch him poaching, but he was eventually arrested for firing a shotgun during a dispute in a tavern's parking lot and spent several years in prison.

Not long after that incident, Iowa Game & Fish asked me to write an article regarding the impact of poaching on legal deer hunting. More recently, the editor asked me to write again on deer poaching in Iowa and, more specifically, about the impact of poaching on trophy white-tailed deer.

POACHERS ARE STEALING IOWA'S TROPHY BUCKS
According to several conservation officers and wildlife biologists of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, the poaching of white-tailed deer continues in the Hawkeye State, with unfortunate effects on both the deer-hunting success of law-abiding hunters and the recruitment of trophy bucks into the Iowa deer herd.

When I observed the poacher I described in the opening of this article, deer in Iowa were relatively scarce. Hunting was restricted to specific zones, and hunting regulations allowed sportsmen to annually take one deer by means of a firearm and one deer by means of archery gear. Back then, Iowa's statewide annual legal harvest of whitetails was about 20,000 animals. Just shooting a deer was a challenge, and it simply wasn't legal to harvest much deer meat. Back in those days, poachers' common motivations were to put extra meat in their freezers or make a few bucks selling the meat.

But times have changed. Iowa's deer herd currently stands at some 525,000 animals -- a record level. As a result, complaints arising from deer damage, such as auto collisions, and browsing of landscapes, orchards and crops, have grown, and the state has reacted by greatly liberalizing seasons and bag limits, instituting many special-regulation hunts annually, and reducing the cost of some deer-hunting tags. All these efforts have driven Iowa's annual legal deer harvest to about 10 times what it was in the early 1980s.

What's also grown tremendously is interest in trophy deer. Among many hunters' circles of friends and sportsmen, the taking of record-book bucks is a focus of intense interest. But that interest appears to be equally strong in poaching circles. As a result, experts agree, deer poaching in Iowa over the last 20 years has increased, the reasons for it have changed, and it's taking place in areas in which the perpetrators once hesitated to commit the crime.

WHY PEOPLE POACH
According to IDNR deer biologist Willie Suchy, the motivations of poachers have shifted from subsistence to bragging rights. "The emphasis is on trophy deer," he said. "More people probably poached years ago just to get a deer. Hunting opportunities were more limited, and so getting a deer was harder.

"Now, there are all sorts of opportunities to legally take a deer, but many of those opportunities are for antlerless animals. It's relatively easy for any legal hunter to fill a freezer. Now, poachers go after bucks."

Their image has changed as well. The seedy character spotlighting deer after dark has faded, having been succeeded by what is today a far more diverse group of miscreants. A few are probably still after venison; now, however, most poaching centers on money and ego.