Editor, Times-Union: Indiana’s deer herd is on a rapid decline. I am writing this letter due to concern over our severely declining deer numbers here in Indiana. Just six years ago, I moved from the city of North Manchester to the far southeast corner of Kosciusko County, to enjoy the country life. There are a couple of reasons that I settled in that location to raise my family. One, I liked the house and the property that came with it. The other reason was the abundant amount of wildlife, mainly white-tailed deer, that thrived in that location at the time. Just six years ago, it was not uncommon to see an average of 30-60 deer traversing from the woods south of my house, into the field just west of it to feed on a nightly basis. However, every year since then, I have sadly had the misfortune of watching that number drop drastically. This year the largest group of deer I have seen in that field is four. I spent a lot of time this year hunting nearby properties and saw the same type of thing I witnesses from my home through my windows. Very low deer numbers no matter where I hunted. It is my opinion, as well as thousands of other people, including hunters and non-hunters alike, that our IDNR (Indiana Department of Natural Resources) is badly mismanaging our state’s deer herd. This year, for almost every hunter I have talked to (I have talked to many) this has been one of the worst hunting seasons that they have ever experienced. I have talked to people who ran deer check in stations, had friends that talked to deer-processing shops, and both places have expressed concerns over what they have seen over the last two years, especially this year, which has been very few deer turned in, either to be checked in or processed. There simply does not seem to be many deer left anywhere in Indiana. Sure, you will still have small localized pockets of woodland or farm ground that contain deer, but these places are few and far between, and usually share a common thread, being that they don’t allow hunting, thus providing deer with a safe haven in which to live and reproduce. For the past several years now, IDNR has been increasing the quota of does allowed to be harvested in several counties across Indiana. Hunters and nature lovers alike expressed great concern to the IDNR about these increased doe quotas, but the IDNR is not listening very well. It is almost as if they want to completely eradicate Indiana’s once thriving, healthy deer herd. Instead of listening and acting in an intelligent manner to thousands of concerns over our declining deer herd here in Indiana, the IDNR has greatly liberalized nearly every aspect of deer hunting. My next letter will give examples of the new rules that are leading to the dwindling deer herds. Josh Leffel North Manchester, via e-mail
