KDSN RADIO News
DNR’s spotlight survey is underway, seeking everything from deer to house cats
Staff members from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources are running the roads at night in all 99 counties this month, shining spotlights out both sides of their vehicles as they search for creatures from otters to badgers.
Jace Elliott, a deer biologist with the DNR, says this annual Springtime Spotlight Survey is one of the agency’s largest and most comprehensive efforts that provides valuable information on about a dozen species.
“It’s a nocturnal survey where staff in every county of the state run two 25-mile transects with spotlights and note any mammals,” Elliott says, “both furbearers and deer that are spotted along the way.”
The surveys start about an hour after sunset, preferably on nights with low wind, high humidity and above-freezing temperatures. Elliott says the routes cover different habitats — from river bottoms to farm fields, prairies, woodlots, pastures, and timber stands — and they’re seeking out critters of all kinds.
“Very common species like deer, raccoons, possums, skunks, those are typical to detect in any county,” Elliott says, “but then there are also some more rare or elusive species, like bobcats, mink. There’s about a dozen wildlife species, everything from deer to house cats.”
Keeping the routes and conditions consistent provides more reliable data, he says, and it offers an important index of observations about a variety of Iowa’s animal populations.
“We’re running only 50 miles in a county, which is a big effort, but we still can only hope to see approximately 5% of the landscape,” Elliott says. “The numbers that we track every year are, of course, not a census, but they reflect a trend. If we were to detect less deer year after year in a certain county, then we can infer that that population is declining.”
The survey was started in the 1970s as a way to collect information on the raccoon population, but it’s been greatly expanded. The results will be posted this summer on the Iowa DNR’s website.
