- Hello, everyone.

Welcome to "Michigan Out of Doors."

We have a brand new show headed your way this week and it's pretty interesting.

Jimmy was recently able to sit down with the Michigan DNR deer specialist to talk about all things deer here in Michigan, including some of the hot topics on managing our whitetail population here in the state.

You won't wanna miss that, so make sure you stay tuned.

I'm Jenny Silek, and it's time for "Michigan Out of Doors."

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(mellow guitar music) - Well, we are here in Lansing at one of the DNR offices and we are here with Brent Rudolph, who is the deer, elk and moose specialist here in the state of Michigan.

Before we get into talking about deer, which is always a hot topic here in Michigan, kinda fill us in on your background.

'Cause you were with the department for a while, then you were gone.

Kind of explain your career path here over the last decade or two.

- Yeah, so I joined Wildlife Division back in 1999.

Actually, the first role was field biologist out of our Waterloo office in Jackson County and worked for a few years down there and then stayed on most of my years, prior years with the department, as a deer research specialist.

- Okay.

- Which involved a couple different office locations, as the housing of that place moved around.

But then in 2017, I left and moved into nonprofit work, was with Rough Grouse Society, American Woodcock Society for about four years.

Still living here in Michigan, but was a national role with a lot more travel and moving around places.

And after that, shift to Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever for it's the same about four years.

Working from home but traveling around.

And then just in July, I returned to the department now focusing on the management side on our regulations development and working through Natural Resources Commission and deer advisory teams and other things on all things deer, elk, and moose.

- Okay.

So you must be kind of a glutton for punishment to come back to this job.

I mean, it seems like, I don't know, but maybe- - What better job could there be than to help?

- What percentage of people do you talk with that are, just are happy with the state of the deer population in Michigan?

- Well, I don't run statistics on that.

I mean, but yeah, (Jimmy laughing) I mean as you might expect, you tend to hear from people that have concerns or problems or you know, critiques.

- Yeah.

- Which is fine.

It all, you know, that goes with the job and whether you're happy, whether you're angry, whether you just have observations, you know, we obviously wanna be here and responsive to and hearing from and learning from the public in the process as well.

- Yeah, so walk me through a little bit just this past year season, kind of big picture, how did we do, how did it measure up to seasons the last couple years?

Just kinda gimme the 10,000-foot view.

- Yeah, so we take a look at things, you know, we started heading into the season and looking at what to expect.

Obviously a couple things we look at is what are we gonna anticipate for participation.

What we saw for this year is we sold just a few more kill tags or licenses to just a few less individuals overall.

So pretty similar, you know, it was like within less than a percent difference in terms of, and those are real numbers right?

In the retail sales system.

So we started off with looking at participation should be pretty similar, about the same number of licenses, about the same number of hunters getting rolling as you know, you know, hunting starts early in September and other things and some of the warm weather kept things a little bit slower, not that those are are big parts of the overall contribution to the harvest.

And then the big thing obviously is always breaking down firearm season, that's a big season for us.

You know, opening day firearm season, about 30% of all the deer that die in firearm season open, you know, come hit the ground on opening day.

- 30%?

- Yeah.

Which we have more information now than I used to have about that with our reporting, the mandatory reporting, that then can be almost kind of a real time tracking.

Recognizing there's some lag in that to see how that plays out.

- [Jimmy] So that's a different world than what you were used to before.

- Yeah, that's all.

And that eight year, you know, window of time I was away having the mandatory reporting come online here just within the last few years was new.

It was you know, active thing.

We often had debates about regarding mail harvest survey versus reports and what's a better or worse way to monitor, you know, harvest.

So very familiar with all the ins and outs, but the system itself and seeing how that information is coming in from a deer manager standpoint was new to me.

- Okay, and so the overall take was about as expected, or?

- Yeah, the overall take was down a little bit this year.

You know, the opening day was off in all three of our regions.

Upper Peninsula, Northern Lower and Southern Lower by a little bit.

In southern Michigan, harvest picked up later into firearm season and we picked up to where we're pretty similar to where we were a similar time last year, in the region, you know, as a whole.

In the Upper Peninsula, of course, then before Thanksgiving was when one of the first larger snowstorms and stuff kicked in.

So firearm take in the UP was down compared to last year.

And that's not a big surprise.

Last year's take was up a fair bit from the year before and it's not uncommon, we see those swings one way and then another, you know, I think a large part of what we saw in the UP, some people see in fewer deer or less activity, but probably more so in terms of the hunting conditions not being amenable to keeping the harvest up to the level that it had been the year before.

Northern Lower Peninsula, we knew one of the things heading in was the substantial ice storm from last winter having an impact, you know, probably not on deer but on hunters' access.

- Access, yeah.

- On your ability to get places or locally on, you know, deer always used to be through here.

They're not, I mean that, there's still a lot of places that are affected by all of that and so fewer deer seen, fewer deer taken probably because of that.

But we probably have some areas in Northern Lower Peninsula where numbers overall have deer down a little bit, you know.

- Okay.

- As well.

- So I mean it seems like we have three distinct regions here in the state, you know, UP, Northern Lower, Southern Lower.

Is it feasible to have regulations that kinda can cover all those?

I mean it just seems like there's such different entities.

Have they ever thought about breaking those apart and having separate- - Sure, yeah.

I mean obviously we do have some distinctions.

You know, the way analyst licenses are allocated and used is is very different in the UP.

For the lower peninsula's, pretty much very consistent, you know, now again, that's some more of a change from the time when I was here previously and having the universal analyst deer licenses.

- Yeah.

- And quite frankly, that is a point that some folks are concerned about, you know, the accessibility, availability to buy and use those licenses.

But from the other side, you know, there's something to be said too for reducing complexity of rules and regulations, you know, so the benefit of saying if you're open to taking analyst deer, the licenses are there, purchase 'em and make use of 'em.

And quite frankly, what we've seen is making the shift from individual deer management units, individual quotas for each of those units to having a relatively open accessibility, harvest has not changed substantially with that shift.

So we wanna be responsive and see how deer populations are doing different things in different areas.

It's difficult to track, but we wanna be accountable to do that, but we also wanna make things as simple as possible for hunters to get licenses and get out and enjoy themselves and participate.

- Now it seems like the department has really been pushing more of the doe harvest.

Is that accurate or not accurate or is that something you guys are kind of pushing people to shoot more does?

- Yeah, it is.

And again, it's an area.

So a lot of folks could look at, I mean right now you can go from, you know, the current season that we're winding down, you could go buy 10 universal deer licenses over the counter.

In some portions of the Upper Peninsula, the southern south central area.

And in all the lower peninsula, then you could go out and use those wherever you wanted and people would run numbers on, well how many hunters do we have?

And you know, 10 licenses per hunter and you know, you mean if every hunter in Michigan bought 10 licenses and they all went and filled 'em, like we'd decimate our deer herd, right?

And that's true.

But we know from many years of allocating and making use of and looking at a hunter behavior, that's not the fact, you know, very few hunters purchase anywhere close to that number of licenses.

And many of them are using, quite frankly, an antlerless license as a fallback if they don't get a buck.

So to your point, we continue to try and emphasize, we encourage hunters to make use of antlerless licenses many areas in southern Michigan, many areas still in the northern lower, even in south central, Upper Peninsula.

We have an abundant deer resource and hunters historically are not using it to the extent that they could to still sustain good, adequate, enjoyable hunting opportunities and make use of that extra harvest.

And then it certainly helps in terms of, we'd much rather hunters helping their local farming community, you know, manage a little bit lower deer numbers than some of the places where crop damage is really outstanding.

And we are issuing, quite frankly, quite a few licenses, you know, in summer and other things when there's active crop damage because deer numbers are still really high in many of those communities, right?

So overall.

it'd be a lot better for hunters in many of those places to be part of the management solution and become a recreational opportunity and a chance for another deer to take home and share with their friends and family than to have other people need to resort to taking them, you know, outta season because the level of damage is so high.

- Well, and so for the hunter out there that's saying, okay, the department wants us to shoot more does, why don't they, you know, give out free doe tags or could you get a, you know, a one buck tag with a free doe tag?

I mean as you look at some of the current regulations, are anything like that on the horizon of going to a one buck tag, maybe with a free doe tag?

Or are you guys pretty happy with where things are at as far as the two bucks and then the does are separate and?

- You know, we've done a lot of different permutations on antlerless licenses.

We had times where they were free.

We had times I think in the TV area in northeast Michigan where if you bought one, you got one free with it.

You know, we've worked at a lot of those different angles and again, typically, they haven't had a impact on the overall harvest of deer.

So, you know, we're sensitive to the fact that the licenses are, you know, are about the, it's the same price, a single buck tag or an antlerless license.

And if we're trying to get people to take more antlerless deer, why don't we discount 'em more?

Well again, we haven't seen in the past that that's made a big impact on license, or excuse me, on antlerless take overall, to the point on one buck limit or on other flexibilities.

Again, there's also lots of additional options now for using a combination license tag for antlerless deer in certain seasons and regions.

So again, there is that flexibility and with our reporting system, we know, I think it's, I wanna remember it's 20% or less of combination licenses are used to tag an antlerless deer.

So most folks that are taking antlerless deer are still depending on the antlerless license and the combo license is still a buck tag in their eyes is their preference.

- Are you seeing many, do you hear, well we should only have one buck tag because people are shooting two bucks.

How many people, in your estimation, and maybe these numbers are more up to date now with the online reporting, are taking two bucks?

Is that 10%?

Five?

30?

- Yeah, it's been, so we, so from our postseason mail surveys that we've been doing for many years that go out and we generate their estimates from there.

We have that information, long running percentage of that.

It's basically been like three to 7% depending on year and region of hunters that take two bucks.

- Okay.

- So it's a relatively small number.

Do we hear from people that say we should have one by Clement?

- Oh, I'm sure.

- Yes we do.

Absolutely.

And we try and engage and we've done a variety of ways, you know, through variety of ways on public input and working with our deer advisory teams that we have now and surveys and other things to look at hunter preferences of those things.

You know, the biological impact to go directly to a one buck limit in Michigan would be pretty minor given that number of deer that we say is that second license.

Now if people were restricted to one deer, would they wait a little longer on what antler buck they took?

You know, maybe so.

- You'd think.

Yeah.

- Would they be more likely to take an antlerless deer?

You know, maybe so, but we also know there's a lot of other things hunters are balancing in the process and I'd add to that, that would be a pretty big change.

Probably also seeing the impact, it's not something we'd be likely seeing in a year or two, right?

Hunters going out, and not everybody hunts every year, being faced with the first time of, I've only got one buck tag now.

What do I wanna do with it, right?

That idea might evolve over time.

So get back around to the basic question.

We don't see that there'd be a dramatic immediate impact from shifting to a one buck license in terms of the overall composition of harvest, but it might lead to bigger changes over time as hunters kind contend with that if it became kind of a new- - And that would be something that you would've to propose to the NRC and they would make that change?

Or is that, could you decide that on your own, or?

- The most direct way to do that would be through legislation, through license package.

We have licenses that define what we can sell and what is available for hunters to use.

And quite frankly, as you look at it, there's a little discrepancy of, is that something we could not allow someone to use a license when in law it says we have a license defined as good for two deer?

So yeah, it's at a minimum, it's not something I make the decision about.

It's something we work through the Natural Resources Commission on.

- Okay.

- But the clearest way to be, and especially for something like delegating that authority to the department or the commission to make a decision about whether there's a need for that would be best to have it in law, in a license package that states that this is the system that we could use to regulate.

- And I haven't talked to you about this in a while since 'cause you've been gone and I've kind of come full circle on the whole issue of, probably your favorite thing to talk about is deer baiting here in Michigan.

To where I'm just like, enough is like, we just need to open this thing up.

I mean it's just, it just seems, I mean you can buy it on every gas station in Northern Michigan and a lot of people are doing it illegally.

And I know you can't set rules based on people that are not following the rules.

But is that something that, it's just such a hard sell for me when we say, okay, you bait in the UP, but as soon as you get below the bridge, those deer are different and they are gonna act differently.

We know that's not the case, but explain to me from your perspective, why can we bait in the UP and not in the lower peninsula?

- Yeah.

So yeah.

You've come full circle.

I we should talk about your story of where the circle took you in the time in between.

I'd be interested to hear that.

But the bottom line is, yeah, you say we can't set things based on people, you know, not following law or not complying and obviously in some level, you're right.

We can see over the stairwell as you came in the big buckheads on the wall that people- - Yeah.

- Took not following the rules and they paid the price and we need people to abide by regulations.

Right?

- Yeah.

- But there is an aspect of, if you're seeing consistent disregard of regulations and consistent challenge of enforcement, it is something we need to be, you know, sensitive and aware of specifically on baiting.

It's a challenging situation for all of us, for hunters and for biologists that are trying to advise the Natural Resources Commission and the legislature who's very interested in this as well.

You know, bottom line is we do have a responsibility to be looking at the overall health of the deer herd and wildlife diseases in general and whether there's a baiting interface on disease to disease varies a little bit, but those are important considerations that we have an obligation to.

And when you look at some of the trade-offs, especially our longer history with baiting was around bovine tuberculosis where high levels of baiting, high levels of deer feeding many decades ago from everything we can tell was the reason why a disease of livestock crossed from cattle who are face-to-face breathing on each other into wild deer where decades ago, anybody that knew anything about wildlife disease would say that's not a disease of wildlife, that's a disease of livestock.

- Hmm.

- But we got it within and sustained within our deer herd and it's a disease with human health concerns that we need to take, you know, seriously.

So to come back around to it, everything we've done, and it's been a fair bit to study how deer behave at bait, how hunters are using bait, is it improving their effectiveness.

The way recreational hunters use bait and the way it's used in Michigan is a negative for disease.

It has a different kind of effect.

Deer concentrate together in different ways at bait than they do at other sources of food.

And yes, will deer aggregate at apples and acorns under a tree?

Yes.

But that is something that happens as a part of a natural course of nature compared to potentially hundreds of thousands of people adding additional resources of food, especially at the same spot on the ground.

So to get it back around to it, it's not a positive for disease, but we recognize again the challenges on enforcement, the challenges that many hunters still have their own opinions and are very upset and agitated about it.

So we'll go through in this regulation cycle to come, some pretty honest discussion with the Natural Resources Commission on what we need to do as we move forward.

- Okay, because I think, and I get all that and that's something that the department's been saying for years, but then it's like, well then why, as we go above the bridge, it's okay to put bait down up there?

- You're right.

And I'm glad you brought that up.

So that gets to the other aspect of it then is to switch over again into having that balance of kind of the social acceptance, right?

So in the lower peninsula, we've been dealing with bovine tuberculosis.

We've had a long time of restrictions or bans in northeast Michigan around the concerns of spreading that disease.

As we became aware of chronic wasting disease in our free ranging deer, our initial responses obviously were to take that threat very seriously and have regulations there.

The single deer found in the western Upper Peninsula near the state border with chronic wasting disease years ago, triggered responses.

We have a lot of folks ask, where is CWD?

You only found that one deer.

Well, it's a spark as you find an initial case that may or may not be an ember that burns into a larger flame and stays in place.

We can't say for certain that there are no other deer with chronic wasting disease in- - That was probably the only one.

- But, you know, from natural mortality, other things that happen, deer movements and other things, it's also possible that it pops up and it is not sustained and it's not continuing to be an issue.

So that's really one of the things of a concession to looking at the challenges and issues of hunting in the Upper Peninsula being a little bit different than the lower peninsula.

Not having as long of a history.

Certainly on the tuberculosis side, not that we don't care about tuberculosis in the upper peninsula, but we know it's sustained within the deer herd is only in the northeast lower peninsula.

And so that really was one of the concessions made to say there's a pretty strong demarcation between a lot of the other things we see happening in the lower peninsula.

So it's continued to be available.

- And let's just kinda wrap things up here.

With antler point restrictions, that northwest part of the lower, you know, when that first went in there, those people fought tooth and nail, they didn't want that.

Now it's been implemented for quite some time and people love it up there and they're seeing, you know, bigger, better bucks.

Is that something that state is considering like maybe open that up lower peninsula wide, maybe changing some stuff, kinda, where are we at with antler point restrictions?

- Yeah, I mean Michigan's had a long history in a lot of my earlier years with the division and department on the research side was looking at antler point restrictions and we had a process for proposing them and so forth.

Yeah, I mean it's always on our radar.

It's obviously a recognized aspect of deer regulations.

Some states have put 'em in place in broad areas and removed them and kept them in place, et cetera.

We'll continue again to look at what proportion of deer would be protected under various antler point restrictions.

Personally, the other thing I have seen is, we had a very strong period in Michigan with seeing deer management cooperatives really take hold with local hunters and landowners and farmers getting together and having their conversations to create voluntary rules around what they're going to do.

And the bottom line is an antler point restriction is a relatively crude tool to protect a certain portion, mostly of year-and-a-half-old bucks.

Without having a very advanced point restriction, that's gonna leave a lot of deer unavailable to them.

So to your point, where they've been in place in different places in Michigan, you kind of bump the yardstick up where a lot of our history, quite frankly, is the most common deer that goes home is a yearling buck.

Right?

The individual category, it's bumped it up to where the most common deer is a two-and-a-half or three-and-a-half-year-old, you know, buck.

- [Jimmy] Yeah.

- You're sneaking a few more into a little bit higher ranges, but for the most part I'd say even in the northwest where people are really seeing bigger responses is probably adding onto that they're own distinction of, I made it to two and a half, maybe I'll let 'em go, you know, for another year or another year.

And so that's the other thing we really wanna do.

We've had discussions with our field personnel here is look at how we can also be supportive for people getting together and making informed decisions about how they wanna manage harvest in their local area.

Because if you really want mature bucks, you're gonna have to make decisions about taking up another notch then simply counting the number of points out at a site and then pulling the trigger.

And there's some examples in places that have been very successful with that in Michigan and be nice to have hunter's feel they've got an option for doing that and getting support from the department in ways to make that a feasible way to see a change in their local activities.

- Okay and so, but big picture wise, the department's fairly happy with the harvest from this past year, about what you expected?

A little lower maybe than you thought, but kinda just big picture again, just at the end.

- Yeah, no big shocks.

You know, again, seeing down down a little bit overall and that'll probably carry through, I think in southern Michigan, we're gonna be probably pretty close, you know, we didn't talk much about epizootic hemorrhagic disease, that's another thing.

Another disease, not a bait-related one, but another one that pops up.

You get a lot of indication again that it has, can have a really dramatic localized effect.

So in places that did have an impact, but what we see as the region as a whole is that harvest remained, you know, relatively healthy there as well.

And you know, we're just about done with deer hunting now, so we'll get some final numbers to you eventually.

- It seems like you cannot have deer anymore, but did you get out and do any hunting yourself this year?

- I did a little bit.

Not as much as I would like and that's almost always the story, but transitioning into the new job and other things, just taking a little bit of extra time.

- Well thanks for your time.

Good to see ya.

- [Brent] Yeah, thanks for having me on.

- Thank you.

- Always a good chat with you.

- Well, how the DNR manages our deer herd is always a hot topic and most of us hunters have things we would love to see changed.

Stay tuned to our website and social media outlets as we did ask Brent a lot of questions that you sent us for him to answer.

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