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Ralph Loos: Illinois deer hunters still waiting for last year’s harvest report with new season looming

The author, Illinois Outdoor News editor Ralph Loos, says in an age of unlimited technology, tallying a deer harvest should come fast and easy. (File photo courtesy of USFWS)

Illinois bowhunters are only a couple weeks away from beginning a brand new deer season with absolutely no idea how last season turned out, even though it’s been 249 days – roughly 5,976 hours, give or take – since the last arrow was knocked and released.
It doesn’t get any more Illinois than that. Nobody has ever fully explained how DNR’s system of tracking the state’s deer harvest went awry, but as recently as a few years ago, anyone with a hankering for a hunk of harvest could go to the DNR website and learn exactly how many deer had been taken at any point in the season.

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