The meat will be processed in two-pound bags of ground venison and then distributed to needy families in the area.

There is a $1 fee for each tagged deer donated. The fee helps fund HUSH. Each locker will receive $60 per deer to process the meat and the Food Bank of Iowa and its affiliates coordinates the distribution.

The Food Bank will also received $5 of the money for expenses.

The program began three years ago and went statewide last year.

There were 5,600 deer donated in 2005, which amounted to 280,000 pounds of ground venison.

The Edgewood Locker had 76 deer donated at their location during the first two days of the first season.

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Almost 120,000 hunters statewide tromped through woods, fields and CRP to kill nearly 50,000 deer during the weekend of first shotgun deer season.

These numbers were so readily available because of a new harvest reporting system required by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (IDNR). Iowa deer and turkey hunters, starting Sept. 15, are now required to report, either on-line or by telephone, their harvest, whether it’s a doe, button buck or a buck. The information during this hunting season, according to the IDNR website, should give them much better data than the postcard survey’s the department has used in year’s past.
But they are still having trouble getting hunters to register their kill.

“We are definitely not getting all the deer reported,” said Steve Roberts, who is collecting the data for the IDNR. “The landowner-tenant licenses are reporting at only 18 percent success, and I think that is particularly low,”

During the first season, hunters with any paid deer licenses reported a 43 percent success rate and paid antlerless only deer licenses reported a 50 percent success rate.

There were 1,200 antlerless tags available in Delaware County this hunting season. Hunters can either go first or second season and use their antlerless tag or go during a special January
antlerless season which takes place Jan. 11 through Jan. 21. Backbone State Park had 200 antlerless tags available during their special season, which was Dec. 2 and 3.

The survey program went, according to the IDNR website, pretty well. Roberts worked with several hunters who were having problems or ones who had the system malfunction on them while reporting their kills.

One problem during first season was that hunters were tagging their deer correctly but were reporting the harvest registration number from another tag.

“Each tag has its own unique number and the tag on the deer is the number that must be reported,” said an IDNR press release.

The following is a checklist for tagging and reporting a deer that is provided on the IDNR website:

1.) Record the date of kill in the space provided on your transportation tag. If you have a cell phone with you in the field, the DNR strongly recommends that you report your deer prior to attaching the transportation tag.
2.) Attach the transportation tag to the deer within 15 minutes, or before moving the animal.
3.) Report your deer to the IDNR by midnight on the day after you harvest the animal, before processing or before transporting the animal out of state, whichever comes first. You have the option to report by telephone (1-800-771-4692) or on-line (www.iowadnr.com).
4.) After reporting a confirmation number will be provided to you. You must record your confirmation number in the box provided in the lower left corner of your transportation tag.

Second shotgun season for deer began Dec. 9 and will last for two weeks, ending Dec. 17.
According to the IDNR, the majority of deer harvested in Iowa occurs during the two shotgun seasons. Willy Suchy, a deer biologist for the DNR, had anticipated about 100,000 deer would be taken during the two seasons.