http://detnews.com/article/20100624/SPORTS07/6240390/1435/sports07/Michigan-likely-to-put-crossbow-on-equal-footing-with-bowhunting-for-deer detnews.com
June 24, 2010
http://detnews.com/article/20100624/SPORTS07/6240390 Michigan likely to put crossbow on equal footing with bowhunting for deer
DAVE SPRATT
Special to The Detroit News
If you've been watching the crossbow situation in Michigan and wonder what comes next, you needn't wonder much longer. It's a virtual certainty that by the time the sun rises on Michigan's archery deer season on Oct. 1, crossbows will be fully recognized as archery equipment.
That means no partial seasons, no disability requirements, broader age limits. About the only question on the table is whether hunters under age 50 will be able to use them in the Upper Peninsula.
Michigan's Wildlife Division has sent three proposals for the Natural Resources Commission to consider. One would keep crossbow regulations as they are, with a three-year trial period in which crossbows are legal for ages 12 and up in the southern Lower Peninsula and legal for anyone age 50 and up during the early archery season (Oct. 1-Nov. 14).
Don't bet on that proposal getting more than a cursory sniff: One wildlife official called it "not a live option." And forget the three-year trial period. Crossbow sales were huge last year, participation in the archery season was up 7 percent and the statewide archery harvest went up 10.5 percent statewide and 19 percent in the southern Lower Peninsula where the herd is the biggest. State officials have seen enough.
"Two commission meetings ago (Department of Natural Resources & Environment director) Becky Humphries said from her point of view, a crossbow was just another way of taking deer and a great opportunity for recruitment and retention," said Russ Mason, Michigan's Wildlife Division chief. "(Commissioner) John Madigan asked me if there was any biological reason for us not to expand crossbow use, and I told him there is not. This is purely a social issue."
The other two proposals going to the NRC would greatly expand crossbow hunting. One would make crossbow hunting legal statewide for anyone age 10 or older in all seasons. The second would do all that for the Lower Peninsula and hold the Upper Peninsula to status quo, allowing hunters age 50 or older to use a crossbow during the early archery season.
The NRC will hear the proposals on July 8 and is expected to make a final decision at its August meeting.
Last year's debate over whether to allow crossbow use got extremely heated at times. Traditional bowhunters argued that their sport requires a great deal of practice and they were reluctant to share their hard-earned archery season with hunters who may be just as proficient only because of superior weaponry.
"Bowhunting was put there for a challenge, and people who bowhunt accept the challenge," said Bruce Levey, president of Michigan Bowhunters, a group that opposed crossbow use during archery season. "Somebody that knows how to shoot a firearm can be proficient with a crossbow in minutes. One of our members bought a crossbow and within four shots he was dialed right in. That's not what archery is all about."
Crossbows aid recruitment, retention
But the magic words of wildlife management these days are "recruitment" and "retention." Hunters pay the bills, not only through license fees that hikers and birdwatchers don't pay, but also through excise taxes like Pittman-Robertson, which funnels money from the purchase of weapons, ammunition and other gear back into wildlife programs. So wildlife managers always are looking for ways to attract younger hunters and to keep older guys in the field.
Crossbows accomplish both those things, according to Mike Tonkovich, a biologist who runs Ohio's deer program. Crossbows are standard archery equipment in Ohio, where the weapon became legal in 1976. These days, nearly half of Ohio's deer hunters use crossbows, and to Tonkovich the weapon not only solves recruitment and retention issues, it also keeps pressure on a growing deer herd.
"We're expanding seasons, increasing bags to ridiculous levels, we're hunting backyards, we're offering incentives and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on processing subsidies to try and encourage the harvest of additional deer," Tonkovich told an audience at the Archery Trades Association meetings in December. "We're removing every regulation hurdle, every logjam possible to try and encourage hunter participation. About the only thing left is to harvest the deer for the hunter. And yet at the very same regulation meeting, we are resisting giving hunters a choice out of fear that we'll upset our traditional archers."
Numbers show crossbow's acceptance
Tonkovich points to a deer-harvest bell curve that shows the bulk of vertical bowhunters harvesting deer between the ages of 18 and 45. But the curve also shows a sizable number of deer killed by crossbow in the under-18 group and by those over 45.
And because archery seasons are longer and bowhunting can be done closer to home and in better weather, many hunters are more likely to participate, especially with the "proficiency in a box" that crossbow hunters can buy, Tonkovich said.
Jeff Kunkel, a deer hunter from Hillsdale, Mich., favors full inclusion of crossbows because of the way it helped his own children learn how to hunt. Because he lives so close to Ohio, where crossbows are legal and there's no minimum age requirement to hunt, his second son shot his first deer at age 9.
Kunkel said the crossbow gave his children a head start of 2-4 years on deer hunting that they wouldn't get under Michigan's existing law. They can learn about deer movement and hunting skills more comfortably in the early season, he said, and they don't need the strength required to draw a compound bow.
His son took those lessons and his crossbow and ran with them. Kunkel estimates Daniel, now 13, has killed 15 deer.
"He probably killed five deer with that thing from age 9-14," Kunkel said. "And he was able to hunt in October, so I was able to teach him some things about deer movement and learning better skills. The kid is prolific."
Levey argues that the crossbow isn't the solution to Michigan's deer-management problems. The biggest deer-density problems in Michigan are in the southern Lower Peninsula, where crossbows already are legal for everyone age 12 and up.
"The deer population boom that we have in the Southern Lower is basically due to hunter access, and they're looking at using crossbows to cure the overpopulation of deer," he said, "when in actuality all hunters need is to have better access to private ground. Private ground owners need to be more willing to let people harvest the deer. We certainly already had enough seasons to harvest deer."
Brian Schupbach, who owns Schupbach's Sporting Goods in Jackson, saw the sale of crossbows increase dramatically last year, especially among older hunters. But he said a lot of guys are buying crossbows simply because it's a different way to hunt.
"It's fun," he said. "It's just a different way of hunting. There's nothing bad about them. There's a misconception that it's a silent rifle, but it's not. It's just a fun tool to hunt with and it gives you a different experience. Most guys set up realistically with a crossbow like they're hunting with a regular bow. They want (the deer) in close and in tight and that's the fun of hunting with archery equipment."
Dave Spratt is editor of
http://www.greatnorthernoutdoors.net">
http://www.greatnorthernoutdoors.net. He can be reached at
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[email protected].
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Topic: A bitter pill--more crossbows in Michigan (Read 3471 times)
