The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is updating its deer hunting regulations.
The department is reinstating certain restrictions on the kinds of deer that can be harvested in the southern part of the state. In 2018, the state Department of Natural Resources implemented a regulation to prevent the spread of an incurable neurological condition that affects deer. It’s called Chronic Wasting Disease.
The regulation allowed hunters in parts of the Lower Peninsula where the disease was spreading rampantly to harvest deer with any number points coming off the main part of their antlers. But statewide deer biologist Chad Stewart says there was no impact on hunters’ behaviors and no change in the number of deer getting infected.
“I think it was it's going to continue to spread. And I think that's going to continue to spread either with or without antler point restrictions, because in some places, it's fairly widespread.” said Stewart.
Because of that, Stewart says the state is now keeping regulations the same for the entire peninsula. nThose allow licensed hunters to harvest one deer with any antler size and then another with at least one four-point antler