BY HANNAH SPANGLER
New Illinois legislation aims to remedy the deer nuisance problem throughout the state.
Senate Bill 2160, sponsored by state Sen. Patrick J. Joyce, D-Kankakee, would give landowners more tools to manage deer populations on their farms, encourage hunters to pursue more antlerless deer during regular hunting seasons and expand venison donations to Illinois food banks.
The legislation was officially introduced at the end of February but has been a continual initiative of Illinois Farm Bureau following reports of escalating crop damage from IFB members.
“Everything in Senate bill 2160 is a direct reflection of issues that members brought up at meetings or even the solutions that they brought with them,” said IFB Assistant Director of State Legislation Anna McKinley, explaining that this legislation reflects the grassroots efforts of county Farm Bureaus contacting their legislators and organizing deer informational meetings.
One major issue heard from farmers and landowners was the Deer Removal Permit (DRP) process. McKinley told FarmWeek long and varying wait periods to get ahold of a wildlife biologist can be frustrating.
“The deer aren’t going to wait and see what IDNR (Illinois Department of Natural Resources) says, they’re going to keep eating your crops,” McKinley noted.
The proposed legislation calls for IDNR to respond to a request for a DRP within five business days. Failure to do so would result in automatic approval. Additionally, any licensed hunter would be able to use a DRP on behalf of the landowner.
For regular hunting season, SB 2160 encourages hunters to pursue more antlerless deer (does). This would include legalizing party hunting, or groups of outdoorsmen pooling their tags together, for antlerless tags or either-sex tags used to take antlerless deer. The bill also links the number of DRPs issued in a county to the number of firearm tags available.
“We’ve been very intentional when we’re looking at the hunting regulations to not just slash or roll things back and make it a free-for-all, but to instead implement things that encourage people to take more antlerless deer,” McKinley said.
The last piece of SB 2160 is a deer donation program. If passed, the legislation would streamline the donation process and establish the Hunter Food Bank Fund, supporting grants awarded to foodbanks to pay processors for donated deer. To support the fund, hunters would have the choice to voluntarily purchase a hunter food bank stamp from IDNR.
SB 2160 has been assigned to the Senate Appropriations Committee and awaits further action. In the meantime, IFB continues to meet with IDNR to discuss the bill and the deer nuisance issue. Christina Nourie, IFB northeast legislative coordinator, stressed the importance of the Adopt-A-Legislator program for issues like this one, as urban legislators may not have personal experience with nuisance deer.
“We ask that counties with adopted legislators discuss this bill during spring visits and share how nuisance deer have damaged your crops,” Nourie said. “By sharing your own experience, we can help urban legislators better understand the need to address this issue.”
A total of 12 deer-related bills were filed with the Illinois General Assembly this year, including another bill supported by IFB, SB 2061, sponsored by state Sen. Neil Anderson, R-Aledo. If passed, McKinley said this legislation would allow landowners to seek compensation from the IDNR for deer-related property damages over $500.
“A lot of people wanted to talk about deer this year,” McKinley said. “This bill (SB 2061) is a good conversation piece that helps us show how much damage deer cause to crops on average.”
Content for this story was provided by FarmWeekNow.com.