(Michigan Department of Natural Resources photo) The gap between antlered and antlerless deer harvests in Michigan appears to be widening, according to the Department of Natural Resources. The state’s antlerless harvest has dropped by about 28% since the early 2000s.

Editor’s note: In a recent open letter to deer hunters, a Michigan Department of Natural Resources official stressed the need for an increased antlerless harvest in the state, primarily in the Lower Peninsula. A portion of the letter, which can be found in its entirety at https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/MIDNR/bulletins/3716e4f, follows.

By CHAD STEWART

Deer, elk and moose

management specialist

Michigan Department of Natural Resources

Since 2000, do you know how many years we have harvested more antlerless deer than antlered deer in the state of Michigan? The answer is one. In 2009, we had an estimated antlerless harvest of 220,913 and an estimated antlered harvest of 215,104. Every other year in this century, we’ve taken more antlered deer than antlerless deer. If you make a quick comparison with the states around us, such as Illinois, Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin, they all typically harvest between 8% to 25% more antlerless deer than they do antlered deer in a given year. Using those measures, we should be harvesting between 43,000 and 68,000 more antlerless deer in the Lower Peninsula alone!

While this sounds like a lot, keep in mind that the Lower Peninsula has about 40,000 square miles of land. While not every square mile is created equally, and some of those square miles won’t hold any deer due to intensive development or other factors that make the land unappealing to deer, one can see that such an increase in total harvest can be achievable, especially in areas where deer are abundant.

Furthermore, the gap between antlered and antlerless take seems to be widening. Our antlerless harvest has decreased by about 28% from the early 2000s to today. Our antlered harvest, for comparison, has only declined about 11% over this time, likely because of the decreased hunter numbers, not a declining deer herd.

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. The current trend we are experiencing is simply not sustainable for long-term deer management in Michigan. …

While a majority of this article has been spent on the high deer numbers in our Lower Peninsula, it’s worth mentioning that in the Upper Peninsula, we have a very different scenario unfolding. While antlerless harvest needs to be increased in some areas of the U.P., in other areas, our deer herd exists at low densities. Despite areas with low deer densities, the allowance of antlerless deer harvest is possible. Research has shown that at low densities, hunters have minimal impact on deer populations, which prevents populations from crashing due to hunting.

Because of the differences in deer density across the Upper Peninsula, we have implemented a tiered system with how antlerless licenses can be used.

In the southern part of the U.P., antlerless licenses can be used similarly to how they are used in the Lower Peninsula. In these units, winter is often milder and deer numbers are abundant. Even in some areas with low deer numbers, the impact of these licenses being available often translates to less than one antlerless deer harvested per square mile.

Across much of the central U.P., we have developed larger, similarly managed units with limited antlerless lotteries. Hunters can put in for a permit to use their universal antlerless license for either Deer Management Unit 351 in the east or Unit 352 in the west part of the region. Only 1,000 of these permits are available this year in each unit, and if history is any indication, harvest attributed to antlerless licenses in these units totals less than 400 across these 6,600 square miles.

Finally, in the far west of the U.P. and along the Lake Superior shore, antlerless harvest is again prohibited.

I understand that many hunters may be reading this and have reservations about changing their philosophy regarding antlerless harvest for fear of dropping a deer population too low.

If you find yourself in this camp, let me share some data that we use to make our deer harvest decisions. The first is the forecast of hunters we have in Michigan, which is expected to fall to about 450,000 by 2030, down from the nearly 800,000 deer hunters we had in 2000.

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. So, the fear of hurting your deer population by removing another antlerless deer because your neighbor takes too many is probably, in most cases, unfounded. Chances are your neighbor isn’t taking very many antlerless deer either, so you won’t be negatively impacting your herd by taking an extra doe or two.

Because of our lower hunter numbers and our continued unwillingness to shoot an antlerless deer, we are shooting far fewer antlerless deer than we have historically. That means that we have much room for improvement in terms of overall antlerless deer harvest across much of our state.