LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Michigan hunters need to improve their antlerless deer harvest according to Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Officer Chad Stewart, who specializes in deer, elk, and moose management. 

“Since 2000, we have harvested more antlered deer than antlerless deer every year except for 2009 when we harvested an estimated 220,913 antlerless deer and an estimated antlered harvest of 215,104,” Stewart said in an open letter to deer hunters. “Every other year in this century, we’ve taken more antlered deer than antlerless deer.” 

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He compared Michigan to surrounding states such as Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin who generally harvest between 8% to 25% more antlerless, or female deer, than antlered, male deer annually. 

“Using those measures, we should be harvesting between 43,000 and 68,000 more antlerless deer in the Lower Peninsula alone!” he acknowledged. 

Additionally, Stewart encouraged the practice as it can have positive long lasting effects on the state’s adult sex ratios and quality of the bucks. 

“Taking, on average, about 1 to 1.5 additional antlerless deer per square mile in the Lower Peninsula can improve our overall management, help balance our adult sex ratios and even improve the quality of the bucks that we see,” he added. “The current trend we are experiencing is simply not sustainable for long-term deer management in Michigan.”

Stewart also challenged the dominating philosophy of deer hunting, namely, ‘get your buck and then wait for a bigger buck to show up later in the season.’ Instead, he pointed out that through legislation, there have been attempts to incentivize hunters shooting antlerless deers in addition to antlered ones, but that perhaps a new hunting philosophy could help in the long run. 

“Antler point restrictions, a ‘one buck’ rule, ‘earn a buck’ (the idea that a hunter has to harvest an antlerless deer before being eligible to take a buck) and changing the opening date of firearm season from the traditional Nov. 15 to instead falling on a weekend are all options frequently pitched to help alter the course of management,” he wrote. 

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While acknowledging that this might be a tough philosophy to adopt, he offered some deer harvesting statistics including projections that the number of deer hunters is expected to drop from the 800,000 in 2000 by nearly 50% in 2030. 

“It’s also worth noting that our data shows that 75% of hunters don’t take an antlerless deer, while only 17% of hunters take one antlerless deer in a season. Less than 1% of hunters take four or more deer in a season,” Stewart wrote. “So, the fear of hurting your deer population by removing another antlerless deer because your neighbor takes too many is, in most cases, unfounded.”

Further, Stewart referred to current traffic crash data, showing there were nearly 59,000 reported deer-vehicle collisions, the highest number since 2009.