States seek money for deer hunting tree stand research

By JULI PROBASCO-SOWERS • REGISTER STAFF WRITER

Money is being sought for an eight-state survey of hunters who used elevated stands, whether a platform in a tree, an old windmill, a power transmission tower or a haymow, said Rod Slings, recreational safety supervisor with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Last week Slings attended a meeting in Wisconsin with natural resources safety officers from eight states – Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri and Ohio. One main topic was tree stand safety.

“People are frustrated that they don’t have good statistics on the number of tree stand falls,” said Slings.

He provided copies of an in-depth article examining tree stand accidents that was published in the Des Moines Sunday Register on Dec. 10. Anecdotal information from safety experts, along with information gleaned from emergency room visits, indicates more hunters are injured in tree-stand accidents than in firearms-related accidents. Slings thinks that is true in Iowa.

There were three tree stand falls in one weekend in November in Iowa, and one turned out to be fatal.

Meeting attendees decided to seek money for a survey that would encompass all eight states. Participants at the meeting are from each of the eight states that receive money from the hunting and fishing equipment excise tax called the Pitmann Robertson Act. The money is filtered back to the states through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“We need more information about how tree stand accidents happen, why they happen and what we can do to prevent them,” Slings said.

He thinks money will be available by March.

Slings also said there has been discussion among Iowa natural resources officials about making tree stand falls a mandatory accident reporting item. That would mean a legislative change to designate tree-stand falls as hunting accidents, he said.

“Everyone is quite frustrated because we are all having difficulty obtaining information that would help us focus on a particular issue,” Slings said. “If we don’t know how something is happening, we can’t fix it.

“When it comes to hunting safety issues, focus on the most common issues. When someone falls or is hit by a projectile, we want to do an investigation, like a research project. We want to know why and how it happened, and find the lesson in prevention.”