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Professional deer hunter sues DNR officer, alleging malicious prosecution
Charges against the hunter were dropped by prosecutors earlier this year
By Clark Kauffman, – Iowa Capital Dispatch
May. 20, 2025 4:17 pm, Updated: May. 21, 2025 7:29 am
The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
A professional hunter is suing a state Department of Natural Resources officer whose alleged false claims damaged his business and reputation.
Mark Allen Luster of Burlington is suing Iowa DNR Officer Dan Henderson, in his personal capacity, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, alleging malicious prosecution and “blatant violations of the Fourth Amendment.”
In court records, Luster describes himself as professional hunter and land management consultant who specializes in designing hunting properties “to attract the largest and most prized buck deer” for hunting. “Luster has been incredibly successful as a professional hunter, and he has ‘bagged’ some of the most prized trophy-worthy bucks,” the lawsuit claims. “His livelihood is dependent on his reputation and his ability to maintain his hunting license.”
In the summer of 2024, Luster began developing an 82-acre hunting property that he owned with a friend through a limited liability company called CWD Research. According to the lawsuit, on Oct. 14, 2024, Luster shot a large whitetail buck with a bow and arrow on his CWD Research property. The next day, he located and harvested the deer, then posted a photo of the kill to Facebook captioned, “Checkmate!”
The same day, Henderson reportedly received an emailed complaint from a confidential informant who had seen the Facebook post and asserted there had been bait placed on the CWD Research property in violation of state law, as evidenced by aerial drone photos the informant had collected several weeks earlier.
Henderson submitted an application for a search warrant, seeking to collect soil samples on the property to determine whether bait was being used. Henderson’s warrant application alleged there were photos showing a deer “utilizing” bait in the area, and also suggested Henderson had learned of the illegal baiting through comments someone had made in “in passing,” the lawsuit alleges.
In reality, the lawsuit claims, Henderson was trying to conceal the fact that an informant used “illegally obtained” aerial drone photos. In Iowa, it’s a crime to pilot a surveillance drone over any secure farmstead area.
“Officer Henderson either did not want to disclose that the confidential informant had illegally obtained the information that he was relying on, or he did not want to disclose that the aerial drone photos were obtained through some other improper means,” the lawsuit alleges.
A search warrant was issued allowing Henderson to collect soil samples “in front of cellular trail camera near black hunting blind” and in other nearby sites. On Oct. 16, Henderson visited the property, covered Luster’s trail camera for roughly 14 minutes, and collected samples, the lawsuit stated.
Charges filed and later dismissed
In November 2024, Henderson submitted an affidavit for a search warrant for Luster’s residence, indicating the samples collected by him had shown evidence of bait being used as suggested by the presence of sodium and the chemical DEET. The lawsuit alleges both substances can be explained by factors other than bait.
The warrant was granted and while serving the warrant at Luster’s home, Henderson also served Luster with three criminal complaints charging him with making a false claim for a license, hunting a deer in the presence of bait, and attempting to hunt a deer in the presence of bait.
On Jan. 10, 2025, prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the charge of making a false claim for a license, which was based on the erroneous assumption Luster didn’t own the CWD Research property. Luster then filed a motion to suppress evidence obtained in support of the other two charges, arguing the search warrants were based on false allegations.
On March 18, 2025, prosecutors moved to dismiss the remaining two charges, telling a judge that DNR “is refusing to disclose the identity of a material witness, despite multiple requests from the Henry County Attorney’s Office to do so.”
Court filings in the criminal case include images from Luster’s trail camera that show “a buck muffin” — a deer-nutrition product derived from ethanol grains — was on the property in July 2024. Attorneys for Luster told the court that by September 2024 the “buck muffin had been removed from the property” — a full month before Luster killed the deer in question.
Between the time the charges were levied against Luster and their eventual dismissal, Luster’s “life and career were turned upside down,” the lawsuit claims.
“In the professional hunting community, one’s reputation is paramount to financial success, and allegations that a person unlawfully hunted with bait provide a significant stain on a professional hunter’s reputation,” the lawsuit alleges. “Luster has suffered significant reputational harm, which has led to his loss of speaking appearances on hunting podcasts, derogation by those that comment on hunting matters, and a loss of business for Luster as a professional land manager and designer of hunting grounds.”
As for why Henderson would have included false or misleading information in his warrant applications, the lawsuit posits that Luster’s success as a hunter has led to “animosity from other hunters and the DNR, including its officers, like Officer Henderson.”
It goes on to argue that “Henderson believed that if he were to obtain evidence pursuant to the search warrant he could then pursue misdemeanor charges against Luster for hunting violations, and with a conviction on those charges, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources could revoke Luster’s hunting license … Luster is known to the DNR. Luster is a professional hunting consultant and a renowned hunter.”
The lawsuit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for unlawful search and malicious prosecution. Henderson has yet to file a response to the lawsuit and did not return a call seeking comment. The DNR is not named as a defendant in the case.
This article first appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch.
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Is it cruel to hunt deer?
by Opinion Contributor14 hours ago
- https://www.bangordailynews.com/2025/05/22/opinion/opinion-contributor/is-it-cruel-to-hunt-deer-joam40zk0w/
The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com
Jeffrey S. Barkin is a practicing psychiatric physician, a past-president of the Maine Medical Association, and co-host of “A Healthy Conversation,” a weekly radio show on WGAN in Portland.
He was 14, quiet, and sturdy. His voice hadn’t cracked yet, but his hands trembled slightly as he recounted the buck. “It dropped right there,” he said. “One shot. It didn’t suffer.”
His father had taken him into the woods at dawn, just as his own father had before him. A rite of passage. A lesson in patience, responsibility, and, yes, death. The boy didn’t tell the story with glee. He wasn’t boasting. If anything, he looked a little haunted. “I said thank you to it,” he added.
In my line of work, I hear stories that don’t always make the papers. And when the question comes up — Is it cruel to hunt deer? — the answer isn’t a position. It’s a prism. It depends on where you stand, what you value, and what you see when you look through the scope. Some see meat. Others see murder. And somewhere in between lies an old truth: We are part of nature, not separate from it.
Here in Maine, that truth is woven into tradition. According to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, hunters harvested more than 42,000 deer in 2024, the second-highest total in state history. With a statewide deer population now estimated at over 320,000, and few natural predators in much of the state, hunting is more than sport. It’s a way to manage an overpopulation crisis that would otherwise lead to starvation, Lyme disease, and car accidents. But hunting isn’t just about ecology. It’s about economy too.
Maine’s hunting industry generates more than $350 million annually, according to Hunting Works for Maine, supporting jobs for guides, retailers, and seasonal workers. The economic ripple touches everything from local diners to conservation programs funded by license fees. In rural towns, hunting season isn’t just tradition. It’s stability. It keeps freezers full and communities afloat. Still, that’s not the whole picture.
Ask someone who bottle-fed a fawn at a wildlife rehab center. Ask a hiker who wakes early to watch deer graze through morning mist. Ask a child whose backyard friend didn’t come back. For them, the crack of a rifle isn’t heritage. It’s heartbreak. So, is it cruel?
Cruelty, I believe, lives in intention. It thrives in indifference, in taking life casually or carelessly. Most ethical hunters in Maine feel none of that. They train. They wait. They shoot to kill quickly. They carry the animal out of the woods with a quiet blend of reverence and sorrow.
If anything, that kind of hunting may be less cruel than the industrial food system that packages meat in plastic and distances us from the lives it took. Most animals raised for commercial consumption live short, confined, stressful lives, slaughtered behind closed doors, far from the eyes of the eater. It’s possible they suffer more, and are honored less, than a deer taken swiftly in a cold clearing by someone who says thank you.
There is no curtain between life and death in the woods. Just pine needles. Steam rising from warm fur. A young boy with his hand still shaking. And a truth: Life and death are closer than we like to admit.
As a psychiatrist, I wonder what that moment does to a child’s heart. I’ve seen hunting forge empathy, humility, and a sense of sacred responsibility. I’ve also seen numbness. Sometimes trauma. Like many rites of passage, it matters how it’s done. It matters why.
I’ve spoken with children who cried after their first hunt, not because they regretted the act, but because the reality of taking life was heavier than they imagined. That’s not a flaw in their upbringing. That’s a sign the experience meant something. That they were awake to the stakes.
We should keep asking hard questions about animal welfare, about how we eat, about the emotional toll of normalizing death. But we should also ask whether the alternative — detachment, indifference, and abstraction — carries its own moral cost.
Maybe the better question isn’t “Is it cruel to hunt deer?” but “How do we live in a world where death is necessary and still act with decency and care?” When that boy said thank you to the deer, he wasn’t just being polite. He was answering that question. And I think that matters.
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