(Radio Iowa) – D-N-R staff are now going out after dark and driving back roads to conduct surveys of wildlife. State deer biologist, Jace Elliott, says it’s something they do every spring. “Every county has two different 25 mile transects that run from east to west across each county. And these routes are surveyed at night with a spotlight,” he says. Elliott says they are looking primarily for deer and raccoons, but also other furbearers, like skunks. to track their population.

“And and of course, that’s important because we need to understand the dynamics at play with the different species that we’re monitoring,” Elliott says. “So, for instance, the deer counts that the survey provides, then go into informing our management decisions for antlerless harvest quotas.” He says the numbers will help him learn about some of the impacts on the deer herd. “I’m personally going to be taking a close look at some of our southern Iowa counties in terms of their deer numbers, after the recent E-H-D outbreak may have impacted some county populations in the southern half of the state,” Elliott says. He says the same applies for those keeping an eye on other animals. “All of the furbearers species get examined for statewide and regional trends, but there hasn’t been any large swings in populations from a statewide scale for those species,” he says.

Elliott says the spotlight surveys will run through this month and the results will be released in early summer.