Indiana state parks see return of deer hunting

CHESTERTON, Ind. -- Deer hunting to cull the herd will again be permitted at Indiana Dunes and 17 other state parks after a one-year hiatus.\nDeer are eating too many plants in the state parks, so the hunt is needed to restore balance, said Jim Gerbracht, resource specialist for the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.\n"We're charged with protecting all of our resources, not just deer and other animals but all of the plants, too," he said. "If one negatively impacts another, we have to try to balance that. A lot of people get concerned about an individual species, but we have to look at the whole picture."\nGenerally, hunting is not allowed in state parks. But in the 1990s, after scientists noticed deer were over-grazing on some plants, IDEM began determining how much damage the deer were causing.\n"We found out we had damage to every one of our state parks and started the deer reduction program," Gerbracht said.\nThe first hunt at the Dunes was in 1998. The most recent was in 2004, when 48 deer were killed.