The Natural Resources Commission passed a new set of deer hunting regulations for the 2024 season on Thursday.
Hunters in the Lower Peninsula can expect more opportunity to hunt does, including a slightly longer season and increased access to hunting antlerless deer on public land in the early and late season.
Early-season hunts for youth and disabled hunters will be antlerless only, beginning in 2025.
The idea for targeting does is to better control deer populations in southern Michigan.
The commission also rejected several regulations from a group they asked to provide recommendations for addressing Michigan's deer troubles, including too many deer in the Lower Peninsula and too few in the Upper Peninsula.
(Of the regulations passed by the commission, only a few came from the group's recommendations.)
Deer baiting, for example, won't be expanded in the Lower Peninsula, and neither will antler-point restrictions (which would require hunters to target more mature bucks).
"We're not totally satisfied," said Mike Ketelaar, with the Michigan chapter of the National Deer Association. Ketelaar was also part of the Deer Management Initiative group for the Lower Peninsula. "There's still a lot of work to be done, and we're going to engage in that work. But I would say, all in all, I think the results could have been better, but we understand it's a process."
Ketelaar says his group is excited about the changes to doe management but were disappointed by the lack of action on buck management.
Lincoln Rohn, a hunter and the founder of the popular Facebook group "Michigan Deer Hunters Let em go and Let em Grow," was also disappointed.
He says many hunters wanted the commission to pass regulations that worked to improve buck hunting in the state, particularly antler-point restrictions.
"Confidence in the NRC right now, and the [Department of Natural Resources] is basically zero among hunters that are very engaged," he said.
Part of that frustration, he says, came from the atmosphere of the NRC meeting. There appeared to be confusion among commissioners at points, who voted on a list of regulations that had more than 20 amendments.
Rohn worries that the lack of regulatory action could cause more Michigan hunters to leave the sport or hunt in neighboring states.
Tom Baird, chair of the Natural Resources Commission, says this is the beginning of a longer process.
"We identified some small errors that needed corrections, so that slowed us down a little bit, but I think the end result was pretty good as a first step in the Deer Management Initiative process, and it's only a first step," he said.
He says the priority was to pass regulations in time for fall 2024. But there are important non-regulatory solutions, too, he says, like more work on habitat restoration in the Upper Peninsula and more funding for programs like Sportsmen Against Hunger in the Lower Peninsula.
The seven-person commission voted 5-1 to pass the regulations package, with one commissioner absent. Commissioner John Walters, who cast the dissenting vote, declined to comment.
Jim Sweeney, a hunter from Leelanau County, says while the regulations that passed won't provide the solution to the state's deer problems, the new regulations are at least a start. But it's unlikely the new regulations will make a substantial dent in the problems facing either peninsula.
