Hunting Archery Duck Deer

Overhauling deer hunting - Forty years of deer hunting rules and regulations in Kansas have made the deer licensing process complicated and confusing but efforts to simplify deer hunting are under way.

The Deer Task Force Committee at the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks is working on proposals and recommendations that will streamline the laws and improve the permit process, said Mike Miller, magazine editor for Kansas Wildlife and Parks magazine and committee group facilitator.

“We’re looking to change the whole procedure,” Miller said.

Those recommendations will be presented to the Kansas House committee on Wildlife and Tourism around the end of January or beginning of February.

“We don’t have any proposals or recommendations now but will have by February,” Miller said.

The 10 people at KDWP who are working on the proposals are wanting hunters to share their concerns and feelings about what should be changed. They are encouraging hunters to contact KDWP with their input.

“We want to hear from hunters and hear what they think,” Miller said. “We want to get as much hunter input between now and next year.”

Currently, the committee is spending one day a week formulating the changes it plans to present to the legislature. They need to hear from as many people as possible before they head to Topeka.

“There’s a lot of people out there with a lot of different ideas. We have a long way to go before we make some minor changes,” Miller said.

The actual changes, if voted in by the Legislature will probably not go into effect until 2007.

The growth of deer hunting over the forty years since the first deer hunting season in 1965 has been dramatic. The first deer hunting licenses were very restricted and limited. Rifle hunting permits were few and done by lottery. Bow hunting was unlimited but it was a new recreation and few applied and not many were successful, Miller said.

Now the department issues 52,500 unisex white tail firearms permits, 18,300 archery permits (almost 50 percent get a deer) and 10,500 non resident permits are issued every year. That’s over 90,000 deer permits that have to be processed through 40 years of laws and regulations with more being added nearly every year.

“Every year we’ve added a room in this little house. It’s a complicated maze. It’s been hard to keep up with the changing regulations. We’re going to try to simply that,” Miller said. “There’s a lot of things you need to know if you read through our regulations. There’s a lot of layers and that’s confusing to a lot of people. We would like to reduce those laws.”

The changes will be aimed at making hunting permits more equitable.

Anything that will make getting a license easier will be beneficial to KDWP and Kansas. With 97 percent of Kansas land in private ownership, it is a struggle to harvest deer so making it simpler to get a license will help make harvesting easier, Miller said.
By Gale Rose of the Tribune Staff