HuntingNet.com Forums - View Single Post - Lost A Buck Tonight!
View Single Post
Old 11-12-2008, 03:17 PM
  #17  
USNRETHunter
Fork Horn
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Central Iowa
Posts: 228
Default RE: Lost A Buck Tonight!

When it comes to pursuing injured game, Iowa has done it right in the law. With regard to searching for a deer that you shot:

Retrieval and Waste of Game
While taking or attempting to take game or
furbearing animals, you cannot abandon the injured
animal without making a reasonable effort to
retrieve it from the field...

Where it talks about "Trespass":
This paragraph does not prohibit the unarmed
pursuit of game or furbearing animals lawfully
injured or killed which come to rest on or escape to
the property of another...

Thus, you are required by law to pursue the animal, and a landowner cannot (legally) prevent you from tracking the injured animal on their property. (But leave your gun or bow on the outside of the fence.) If they do actively try to keep you off their property, a call from you to the DNR will quickly result in a visit to them from the DNR and a citation to the landowner if they persist. While I am a strict advocate of private property rights, this is one area where I agree with the law. How many deer go off to die unrecovered in Virginia and other states without such a requirement.
USNRETHunter is offline