LANSING (WKZO-AM) — Firearm hunting season begins Sunday, but deer season this year will be a little different.
For many, it’s just a part of the holidays — that one that comes between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Some schools and businesses close, the Legislature adjourns and Christmas comes a little early for outfitters and private butchers.
But the number of hunters who participate is down 40 percent from just a few decades ago, when as many as 800,000 Michiganders would sight their rifles and head for the woods every November. The Department of Natural Resources says it only expects to sell 500,000 deer licenses this year.
Hunters following the tradition and heading for the upper peninsula will find hunting difficult. Three brutal winters have decimated the herd.
State officials had even considered canceling the hunt in the upper peninsula to let the herd recover, but rejected the idea because the season is so important to the northern Michigan economy. Also, for many who travel, it’s more about tradition and camping than the hunt itself.
In 13 counties in northwestern Michigan, hunters are prohibited from shooting young males with a rack with less than three points on either antler. It’s an ongoing experiment to see if they can increase the number of trophy bucks.
If it works, it may be expanded, but early results have been mixed.
In three counties in mid Michigan, where there have been three cases of chronic wasting disease and possibly a fourth discovered just this week, the DNR has special rules. Nine townships in Clinton, Ingham and Shiawassee County have been declared a “disease area,” and all deer taken during the hunt from those areas will have to be tested.
The disease doesn’t threaten humans, but it could seriously damage the herd if it’s not contained.
Hunting will be unrestricted in approved areas in southern Michigan, and wildlife specialists with the DNR say conditions are the best they’ve been in years. The weather will be cool but not freezing, the deer herd is up because of fewer hunters, there was a favorable spring for breeding and 80 percent of the corn harvest is completed, leaving fewer places for the animals to hide.
Firearms season ends Nov. 30. Hunting is restricted to a half-hour before dawn to a half-hour after sunset.
Safety has been greatly improved with the requirement for hunter orange outerwear, and it may also be a good idea to get a doctor’s check-up before you head for the woods if you live a sedentary lifestyle and are no longer young. More hunters tend to die from heart attacks rather than from gun incidents.
– John McNeill
