As environmental officials work to manage Michigan's growing deer population, a new rule change would put some deer off-limits during an early hunting season reserved for youths and people with disabilities, but it's drawing criticism from some of those hunters.
The rule would allow only antlerless deer to be taken during the early season. It was approved by the state's Natural Resources Commission by a 4-3 vote last month, amongst a slew of others, to take effect in the 2025 hunting season.
“The motivation for that was the problem now in the Lower peninsula, especially in the southern Lower Peninsula, with the overpopulation of deer,” said Tom Baird, the Natural Resources Commission chair.
The rules are intended to help encourage doe hunting as a way to address ecological concerns caused by the population growth of the over 2 million deer in the state, he said. “That means harvesting does because does are the ones that, of course, have the young fawns in the spring.”
Still, the proposed changes have received pushback from those concerned about hunters with disabilities. Republican State Senator Tim Albert of Lowell said in a newsletter that the changes “would reduce interest in hunting and the overall deer harvest." He said he’s working on legislation to stop the changes from being implemented next year.
Baird said he’s received useful feedback from the general public. “We learned a few things that we hadn't been aware of,” he said. “Putting off buck hunting for the disabled until later in the season — say, the November firearms season — presents some difficulties for those folks that we were not aware of.”
Baird reiterated that the rules wouldn’t take effect until next year, and the board was open to revisiting them in the coming year. “There are special mobility problems, there are problems dealing with cold weather for many. So for all of those reasons, I'm, pretty sure that we'll be revisiting that rule in the future.”
Ultimately, Baird said he wants to make clear that doe hunting will help address the herd growth. “We need to help hunters in particular, and the public in general, understand that it's important now to harvest doe,” he said.
