I don't want to be the wet blanket on the bash the DNR fun, but somebody has to do it.
I'll make this my post on this thread because these debates are often like discussing religion and politics. People have their minds made up and it's typically easier to look for a scapegoat than into the mirror.
Having worked in the Michigan sporting goods business for roughly 20 years and also worked with deer biologists, there are a few small facts that most bar stool conspiracy Michigan deer hunters don't want to hear.
The number one fact is most of our 650,000 deer hunters are ignorant about deer management or deer numbers other than the few hours they spend afield each season. The average Michigan deer hunter doesn't even know what carry capacity is, let alone the CC for the land they visit for a day or two in November. The truth is, the field biologists have forgotten more about deer than 95% of the recreationalists think they know. MDNR law enforcement officers are just that, law enforcement. CO's don't make regs anymore than policemen write the laws.
Also, DNR biologists don't write the rules, they only have some input of suggestion. In Michigan, the Natural Resources Commission makes most rules and the Michigan Legislature, not the DNR, raises license fee's. The DNR has the least power in Lansing, compared to the NRC and Legislature.
In a state of 650,000, the rules must be more defined. More and more deer hunters are asking that the rules be defined. In the last 3 surveys, a super majority has asked for rule changes so we're all working in the same direction. While the onus is on us, it's to do the right thing on the trigger, because we kill the deer, not the DNR. But the right thing means making decisions differently than have been made over the past 50 years. Game regulations help shape behavior and decisions.
In a state like Michigan, the rules aren't made for the hard core deer hunter. No, our rules are made for the near 60% of Michigan deer hunters who buy their tag the day before firearms opener and hunt only the first 2 days of the season. So, if we are to better manage the deer, we must make it so the average Joe can become a better management tool by simply following the rules, instead of blindly making a decision, often based on peer pressure and a complete misunderstanding of the biology of the herd. Think of all those guys who "cull" a scrubby yearling buck, all the while thinking they did the herd a good thing. Or those who won't shoot a doe because they "just killed 3 deer". Or those who think feeding an already overpopulated herd is a good thing.
Most Michigan deer hunters alive today started hunting in the 1980's and 90's, when the deer boom was at peak. They think those years were normal. Worse, they think those deer numbers were totally acceptable, as long as they could go to even the worst deer habitat and see deer. Those days are over, just as the housing boom is over.
From talking to biologists, you'll learn that daylight activity decreases in a more balanced herd because the deer don't have to work so hard for food. It's stressed herds where deer are seeking food at 1pm or that run into a bait pile at the sound of the tailgate closing. So, a 30% reduction in the deer herd could result in a 50% reduction in sightings. Also, with a 30% reduction in herd size, the 50% of land out there that is and always was marginal deer habitat may now have almost no daylight deer activity. In the past, it was large deer herds that pushed deer onto most marginal public land. And keep in mind why a lot of public land is public. It's because it was so poor that no settlers wanted it for farming or anything else. All the good soiled land was settled and the junk acidic sandy land was left.
Expecting 650,000 deer hunters to make up their own rules, when most are only afield a few days in a forest hours away from home is like saying that we're going to let drivers make up their own alcohol/drunk driving guidelines and they can also decide their own speed limit.
The majority of Michigan deer hunters never see the stress of the herd in the Winter or can tell the difference of how the northern forest is slowly converting from a landscape of browse species that can sustain a huntable deer herd for our children and a landscape slowing converting to shade tolerant and non-preferred plant species. If you want to end public land deer hunting for our kids, don't worry about PETA or HSUS, just keep doing what we're doing and the forest will eventually be mainly beech, scotch pine and autumn olive and we won't have to worry about many deer being there at all.
While many public land hunters sense something is wrong, they can't put the pieces together as to why and they wrongly blame MDNR. It's hunters demands that have done the most damage. It's the way things had been done is what got us here.
Something else many don't understand is, a main reason the state actively liberalized antlerless tags is the TB outbreak and the fear that TB would get established in the southern Michigan deer herds and impact the billion dollar livestock industry. But it was demands of hunters who were a cause of those herds and regulations in the 1990's.
So, there is a well known cause and effect going on here. The state of public land hunting in Michigan didn't happen in a vacuum. What's maddening and frustrating is that the folks who complain the most are typically the same folks that demand more of the same rules that got them to their present situation.
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Topic: Michigan deer season (Read 2742 times)
