Series of DNR town hall meetings begin Monday, meeting in Ventura Wednesday

DES MOINES — The Iowa Department of Natural Resources will start a series of  town hall-style meetings tonight where local staff provide updates on the recently completed hunting seasons and  possible changes to hunting rules and regulations.

Wildlife Biologist Todd Gosselink says they hope for some good interaction. “We want to hear from the hunters out there what’s working what they think might be changes and then any changes that we might have ideas too,” he says.

Gosselink says there are often questions that come up and this is a chance to provide some answers. “Usually you know, there’s reasons why we have certain regulations, right. So talk about it and you know, have the conversation of well, this is the reason we do this type of thing,” he says. “And a lot of times once you have that conversation, it’s like, ‘oh, okay, that makes sense. I understand why we’re doing that now.’ But they also have great ideas that we can take back and discuss for other things maybe we didn’t think about that might improve hunting and trapping in Iowa.”

Gosselink says he hasn’t heard of any major concerns with the most recent hunting seasons. “These are doing pretty well yeah, there’s things that are down like the furbearers section like gray foxes and know how many gray foxes and some of those similar ones that are, you know, always sort of low like rough grouse in northeast Iowa. But those more common species are are doing quite well thought state,” Gosselkin says. 

The first meetings are tonight. Locally, there will be a meeting at the Iowa DNR Wildlife office in Ventura on Wednesday night at 7 o’clock.