Rate the director.

If you look in the Indiana Hunting and Trapping Guide you will see the counties highlighted as deer reduction counties. To print the guide takes an enormous amount of lead time as the printer must be selected through a state bid process spanning months. (I know, more detail than you wanted). My point is that the idea or suggestion for the deer reduction came internally from the deer biologist and staff. And it had to have come long before the guide was sent to the printer last spring.

Public input is not a requirement it is a courtesy on the part of DNR. Public hearings such as the normal administrative rules changes or new legislation introduced through the summer study committee offer the public an opportunity to be heard but it is not a requirement. Even during the legislature we have seen testimony cut off when the legislators run out of time or weary of a subject.

Bottomline is that if you want to have public input into these decisions you need to be at every meeting you can possibly make where input may be allowed. And if you can't make the meetings you can surely email your thoughts to the DNR to make yourself heard or if you disagree with them you can always contact your legislator and make you views known.

Jack

P.S. the emergency rule is rarely used and has never been overturned which makes the pending lawsuits so important to all of us.