The Michigan Department of Natural Resources has released a recap of the 2022 deer hunting season. DNR deer management specialist Chad Stewart tells us 2022 was the first year hunters were required to report their deer harvest within 72 hours. Thanks to data that rule has generated, the DNR could see statewide harvest numbers earlier than usual. So, why did they start requiring the reports?
“We’ve always estimated our harvest through a post-season harvest survey administered to a random subset of hunters, and that generally gives us an estimate of all the data we need,” Stewart said. “But what we were experiencing using those surveys was a declining response rate.”
Stewart says in an average year, hunters will take about 400,000 deer statewide, and 2022 is shaping up to be about the same, although the number of deer reported is lower because not all hunters followed the new reporting rule. How many of those deer were taken in southwest Michigan?
“In Berrien County, we had about 2,800 deer harvested, about 1,200 antlerless deer and about 1,600 antlered deer. In Van Buren County, we had about 4,500 deer harvested.”
For 2022, 586,000 hunters purchased a deer license, which is about 1% less than in 2021. Most of the deer taken were in the firearm season, with Stewart noting about one deer every second was taken on Opening Day.
