LANSING, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – In an effort to control the state’s growing deer herd, the Michigan Department of the Natural Resources Commission will vote on a series of recommendations Thursday that include expanded “antler point restrictions” aimed at protecting younger bucks and pushing hunters to shoot does instead.
Most the proposed changes came from two citizens advisory groups, one for each peninsula, established by the Michigan DNR early this year, in addition to consultation with tribal groups. The agency says the deer management initiative teams were composed of a range of hunters, farmers, conservationists and others.
In the Lower Peninsula, the deer management initiative is recommending ways to boost doe harvest, including efforts to recruit new hunters and educating them about the importance of harvesting antlerless deer for population management.
Other more controversial proposals that could bring significant changes for this year’s dear season are currently sitting before the Natural Resources Commission, including include expanding the urban archery season, now in place in three metro Detroit counties, to seven more, as well as expanding early and late antlerless firearm seasons currently held only on private land to also encompass public land.
Another proposal is to change the state’s combination license in the Lower Peninsula, allowing the harvest of two deer, to be limited to one antlered and one antlerless deer, essentially turning lower Michigan into a “one-buck management area.”
Another proposal up for a vote Thursday would institute antler point restrictions across the Lower Peninsula, putting limits on shooting bucks based on the number of points on one side of their antlers.
The proposals before the Natural Resources Commission also include eliminating antlerless permits in a central band of the U.P., where does could be migrating south, as well as allowing antlerless hunting with archery equipment only during the early season.
State officials says there were 58,000 car-deer wrecks last year in Michigan, killing 19 people.
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