LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Governor Gretchen Whitmer recently vetoed a bipartisan bill introduced by the House of Representatives which would cancel criminal penalties related to the new mandatory deer reporting requirements. 

“Currently the penalty for not reporting a harvest within 72 hours falls under section 3.103 of the Wildlife Conservation Order.  The potential penalty for failure to comply with harvest reporting is a 90-day misdemeanor. The fines and costs for such a violation can range from $50-$500. While the regulation is written in our Wildlife Conservation Order, which is where all of our deer regulations reside and allows conservation officers to enforce violations, this first year we will emphasize an educational approach to hunters rather than enforcement in most circumstances” according to the Deer harvest reporting FAQ. 

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The House Bill was originally introduced by Reps. Michele Hoitenga, Mike Harris, and Graham Filler.  The legislation was approved by the full house in September by a vote of 70-38.   

While Whitmer and her administration voiced support for House Bill 6354, they later disagreed with language added by the legislature which would take away consequences for not reporting deer harvests up to 72 hours after bagging a deer.  

“HB 6354 would have decriminalized failure to report a deer harvest by reducing penalties from a misdemeanor and possible jail time to a civil infraction. My administration supported this bill and called for its passage,” Whitmer said in her veto letter to the House Friday.

The House floor addition to the bill would block the Natural Resources Commission from issuing “an order or interim order requiring a hunter to report the harvest of deer or retain a harvest confirmation for that deer.”

“The bill does not mirror its original intent. The bill was amended to limit the ability of the Department of Natural Resources and the Natural Resources Commission ability to collect timely, high-quality information on deer harvests, hindering the state’s ability to scientifically manage our deer population and reducing opportunities for the public and Michigan’s hunters to participate in decisions around wildlife management” Whitmer also said. 

Deer hunters must  report a successful harvest to the DNR within 72 hours of the kill or before transferring possession of the deer. The DNR has counted almost 38,000 deer harvests this year, while 7,000 deer hunters voluntarily reported harvests online to help test the new reporting system.  

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“We’re asking hunters to do one additional step, and that is to report their harvest online, through either our online website, or our newly introduced mobile app, where you can do that also,” DNR’s deer, elk, and moose biologist and management specialist Chad Stewart said. 

Hunters are allowed to have their deer reported online by a family member or friend. The family member or friend will need the successful hunter’s kill tag license number, date of birth and information about the hunter’s harvest and hunting location according to the DNR website. 

Whitmer said in the letter that she is still looking forward to figuring out how the Legislature can decriminalize deer hunter’s failure to report deer harvests.

One of the main reasons for the new requirement is to address the decling response rate to the DNR’s postseason hunters survey – which has dropped from roughly 75% to less than 40% over the last 20 years. 

Deer hunting season will last until January in Michigan.