There are too many deer in parts of the Michigan's Lower Peninsula, according to the Michigan Natural Resources Commission, which has added days to the deer hunting season and eased some rules in an effort to encourage hunters to harvest more antlerless deer where the herd is overpopulated.
Antlerless deer are typically female and harvesting more would reduce reproduction.
“Too many deer can cause a lot of negative impacts to forest regeneration, to agricultural damage or even car-deer accidents which a lot of people have experience with,” said Chad Fedewa, acting deer management specialist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.
He said there are fewer hunters than there were in past decades, and a survey of deer hunters found most of them only want enough venison to fill the freezer.
“In areas where increased harvest needs to happen, that can be a challenge for some areas to sustain that level of harvest. The hunters are only willing to shoot one or two deer, but maybe the population needs to have more than that removed.”
We won’t know until the end of the season whether loosening the regulations made a difference.
Meanwhile, in some areas of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, fewer antlerless deer permits are being issued in hopes of increasing the population.
