Literature Cited

Minzey, T. 2008. 2007 Eastern U.P. deer camp survey. Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Newberry. 13 pages.

2008. Wildlife Division Staff. 2007 West U.P. deer camp survey. Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Escanaba. 30 pages.

2008. Wildlife Division Staff. 2008 deer pellet group and dead deer surveys. Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Escanaba. 6 pages.

 

— dictates deer abundance, hunter success and hunter opinions.

In the best deer hunting areas of the southern U.P., a hunter is likely to see fewer than four bucks during the entire firearm season. However, in northern areas of heavy snowfall, a hunter might only see one or two bucks, if he’s lucky, and he probably won’t pass up the first buck that comes along.

Snowfall measurements recorded throughout the U.P. indicate the winter of 2007-’08 was one of the hardest on whitetails in recent years. Furthermore, dead deer searches conducted in the west U.P. confirm that winter deer losses were heavy — possibly even greater than during the winter of 2000-’01 when an estimated 100,000 deer died.

As a result, at this writing ( September), the prognosis is not good. As compared to 2007, biologists are predicting a 15 percent to 20 percent overall drop in the 2008 buck harvest. This means the firearm season buck kill could drop to around 26,000 bucks, resulting in a hunter success rate of only 20 percent.

In addition, because of anticipated heavy newborn fawn mortality in 2008, fewer yearling bucks will be available in 2009, suppressing the buck kill even further next year.

Hunters obviously want to see a lot of deer and they want to shoot bucks. If they don’t, they aren’t very happy and react accordingly. So be prepared to see a lot of disgruntled deer hunters in the U.P. of Michigan during the next two years — all because there’s been too much snow.

 

— John Ozoga is Deer & Deer Hunting’s research editor.