{"id":852260,"date":"2026-06-08T05:53:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T05:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/852260\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T05:53:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T05:53:14","slug":"state-denies-professional-sharpshooting-request-to-manage-iowa-city-deer-population","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/852260\/","title":{"rendered":"State denies professional sharpshooting request to manage Iowa City deer population"},"content":{"rendered":"

IOWA CITY, Iowa (KCRG) – Iowa City\u2019s deer population is growing – with the latest data<\/a> showing nearly 560 deer in just under five square miles.<\/p>\n

On May 14<\/a>, the city asked the state\u2019s Natural Resources Commission for professional sharpshooting, but that request was denied.<\/p>\n

The police department received 35 calls for deer collisions last year. According to the city\u2019s 2026 drone survey<\/a>, the population has risen 16% to about 116 deer per square mile.<\/p>\n

Concern for driver safety is one of the reasons the city wants to bring the number down to a safer level of 25 deer<\/a> per square mile.<\/p>\n

City management\u2019s perspective<\/p>\n

Assistant city manager Kirk Lehmann said although an urban bow hunt is the long-term strategy for population management, the city is working towards a hard reset with the sharpshooting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do believe the data suggests that some sort of targeted sharpshoot is going to be necessary and ultimately that will depend on approval by the Natural Resources Commission,\u201d said Lehmann. \u201cWe look forward to continuing working with them and the DNR.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said the NRC wants to see more results from the city\u2019s urban bow hunt program before signing off on it.<\/p>\n

Participation in the urban bow hunt is growing, with only 3 deer harvested in 2020 and 62 deer by 22 hunters in 2025. Lehmann said that was a 40% increase from the past year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to urban bow hunts, that does allow hunters to get additional buck tags and so that\u2019s a popular incentive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Lehmann said the city is also working to increase outreach and the amount of land available for the hunt.<\/p>\n

A professional sharpshoot would be paid for locally – and Lehmann said it was included in the fiscal year budget.<\/p>\n

A resident\u2019s perspective<\/p>\n

Seeing deer is a near daily occurrence at George Rickey\u2019s house on the east side of town – in sunshine, rain or snow. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a nice city, nice community, and I didn\u2019t realize I was moving into a wildlife preserve!\u201c he said. \u201dRecently, it has really exploded.”<\/p>\n

Although he enjoys seeing the deer, he points out the possibility of disease and the danger to drivers as concerns – as his friend has hit two deer in the past two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d rather see them in my backyard and peacefully wandering around than in my windshield,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause I\u2019m a former EMT and I can tell you that those kind of accidents don\u2019t end up really well.\u201c<\/p>\n

Rickey said he wouldn\u2019t be a fan of a sharpshoot as he wants the management to be extra cautious and said a bow hunt would have more \u201ccontrol.\u201d <\/p>\n

In the meantime, Rickey said the deer are pretty friendly when he encounters them – recounting a recent time a neighbor was selling their house and five deer wandered through his backyard. <\/p>\n

\u201cI said, there\u2019s a great selling point if you\u2019re selling to a family that\u2019s got kids… \u2018Hey look, we\u2019re going to move in right next door to a game preserve!\u2019\u201d he said, laughing.<\/p>\n

Although he said he drives carefully on roads that deer frequent, he will continue to enjoy seeing them in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, they\u2019re here, live with them. Just try to work it out where everybody can coexist,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 KCRG. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IOWA CITY, Iowa (KCRG) – Iowa City\u2019s deer population is growing – with the latest data showing nearly…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":852261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[27],"tags":[348109,348108,348107,348106,4363,348105,348103,348104,110597,348102,33121,348111,159,67,132,348110,68,837],"class_list":["post-852260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-bow-hunting-iowa","tag-deer-bow-hunting","tag-deer-sharpshoot","tag-deer-sharpshoot-iowa","tag-dnr","tag-east-side-ic-deer","tag-ic","tag-ic-deer-management","tag-iowa-city","tag-iowa-city-deer","tag-johnson-county","tag-natural-resources-commission","tag-science","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-urban-bow-hunt","tag-us","tag-wildlife"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116712938299959494","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/852261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}