Hunters planning to participate in Iowa’s shotgun deer season are encouraged to purchase their licenses ahead of time to avoid long lines at the retailer. The DNR expects around 70,000 hunters to participate in the first shotgun season and so far, 26 percent of the licenses have been sold. Iowa’s first shotgun deer season begins Dec. 3. Successful hunters are reminded to report their deer harvest by midnight the day after the deer is recovered. For hunters with Internet access, the online harvest reporting is the easiest way to register the deer. Hunters can report their deer online at www.iowadnr.gov, by calling the toll free reporting number 1-800-771-4692, or at any license vendor.  For hunters who have registered deer for years, there is no change. Online, it takes just a couple minutes. Go to www.iowadnr.gov and click on the ‘Hunting’ tab, then on ‘Reporting Your Harvest’ and follow instructions. Be ready to enter your tag’s nine-digit harvest report number. Accurately reporting the harvest is an important part of Iowa’s deer management program and plays a vital role in managing deer populations and future hunting opportunities.  Reporting the harvest is required by law. Hunters will be checked for compliance. A harvested deer should be reported by the hunter whose name is on the tag…and it must come before midnight, the day after the deer is tagged. The harvest reporting system provides information much faster, and with more detail, than the previous, cumbersome postcard survey. This leads to more responsive management of deer populations; such as adjusting county by county tags or special zone hunt allotments. The Iowa DNR’s wildlife staff will be collecting tissue samples during Iowa’s shotgun deer seasons to test for the presence of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in Iowa’s wild deer herd. The effort will concentrate in southeast Allamakee County where CWD was found in the wild deer herd, in counties near Wisconsin and Illinois where CWD has been confirmed, in south-central Iowa near Missouri, and in Pottawattamie and Cerro Gordo counties, following positive tests in the past from captive facilities and wild deer in or near those counties. Most of the 4,500 samples the DNR hopes to collect will be taken during the first half of December, as more than 120,000 hunters take part in Iowa’s shotgun deer seasons. Sampling involves removing and testing the lymph nodes of mature deer. Many hunters voluntarily contribute samples of their harvested deer for these testing efforts. Most samples are obtained by wildlife staff, checking with hunters in the field or at home processing points. Since 2002, more than 55,000 wild deer in Iowa have been tested. CWD was first detected in the wild herd in Allamakee County in 2013. Iowa DNR’s website provides information about CWD and other information on infectious disease at:http://www.iowadnr.gov/Hunting/DeerHunting/CWDEHDInformation.aspx