He said inexperienced trappers might not check their traps frequently enough. Rhoads and other trappers who spoke at the subcommittee hearing on Monday said it takes vigilance to ensure that animals don’t die in traps, especially during hot summer months. “I think it’s almost overkill - no offense - to do this,” said Bruce Rhoads, a professional nuisance wildlife trapper. No permission is needed if its “impractical or impossible” to get prior consent.įurther, the DNR currently allows landowners to dispense with groundhogs and coyotes, and it is considering a new rule that would extend that to nuisance raccoons. Under current regulations, some of those animals can be trapped or killed with the permission of the DNR to protect people or private property. “A nuisance could be something as simple as: If we’ve had problems with opossums before, in my mind, they’re a nuisance, I can just kill that animal, or any of the five on that list,” said Jim Obradovich, a lobbyist for the Iowa Conservation Alliance, which opposes the legislation. What constitutes a “nuisance” is not defined in the bill. ![]() It was discussed by a House subcommittee on Monday. The new bill would allow the owner or tenant of agricultural property or their agent to capture or kill the nuisance animals. The DNR also spotted the survey’s highest number of coyotes, opossums and skunks last year. The number of raccoons have been unusually high in recent years. Those surveys are conducted in the spring by driving certain roads and using spotlights to identify a variety of creatures. The animals are notorious for consuming sweet corn before it is harvested.Īn Iowa Department of Natural Resources survey last year showed the raccoon population is its highest in more than a decade and has increased about 130% since 2007. The new legislation - House File 118, introduced by Dean Fisher, a Garwin Republican - follows a significant increase in Iowa’s raccoon population. Those animals include coyotes, groundhogs, opossums, raccoons and skunks. ![]() ![]() Several wild animals could be trapped or killed without state permission if they pose a “nuisance” to farmers, under an Iowa House bill that was discussed Monday.
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