Commentary: It’s time to issue more bear licenses in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources claims it needs to raise the cost of hunting and fishing licenses because the number of hunters is declining, which is not entirely true.

The number of deer hunters is declining, but the number of bear hunters is increasing and so are bear numbers in the Upper Peninsula because the DNR is selling too few bear licenses. The state agency can increase its bottom line by more than $100,000 starting this year by issuing more bear licenses, which is something they could have been doing years ago.

Selling more bear licenses will not only raise revenue for the DNR wildlife division without harming the bear population, it will benefit UP deer and moose numbers and bear hunters.

Black bears are important predators on whitetail fawns and moose calves. Years of research done in the UP has confirmed bears that are at least a year old kill an average of three to five fawns per year. With the DNR’s most recent estimate of 11,000 bears that are at least a year old in the UP as of Sept. 1, 2023 (and the population has increased since then), that means bears kill an average of 33,000 to 55,000 fawns per year.

This information is and has been ignored when setting bear license quotas. And there’s plenty of research from Canada confirming black bears are also important predators on moose calves, which is and has also been ignored.

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In spite of the fact DNR data clearly shows UP bear numbers are increasing, the state agency generally continues to decrease the number of bear licenses available to hunters in the UP. The reason for the reduction is that the formula used to determine license quotas is based on hunter success.

Bear hunting success has been increasing as a result of higher bear numbers, so the DNR figures fewer licenses are needed for hunters to tag the “desired harvest.” But that harvest is an arbitrary number for each UP bear management unit (BMU) that has not kept pace with the increase of bears.

The fact that UP bear hunters annually generally have been tagging more bears than the desired harvest during recent years shows that those numbers are too low. Part of the reason desired harvests for UP BMUs are too low along with license quotas, is they are based on underestimates of bear numbers. More on that later.

To further complicate matters, the DNR does not have a population goal for UP bear numbers. Based on the DNR’s most recent population estimate, the number of UP bears that are at least a year old increased by about 1,000 between 2022 and 2023. If that trend continues into 2025, there will be at least 13,000 bruins that are legal for hunters to shoot in the UP this fall. Instead of increasing license quotas like they should, they are decreasing them again.

The DNR is recommending a UP bear license quota for 2025 and 2026 of 5,103, which are up for approval at the March Natural Resources Commission meeting. That compares to a UP bear license quota of 5,406 in 2022 and 2023 and 5,771 for 2020 and 2021.

Because of reducing bear license quotas for the UP, it can take as long as eight or nine years of applying for a tag to get one for preferred hunts in at least one BMU. An increase in licenses would reduce the wait time. Far more UP bear tags were issued by the DNR between 2002 and 2011 without hurting the bear population. Back then license quotas were increased as bear numbers went up.

Statewide bear license quotas ranged between 10,844 and 12,993 during those years, with most of them issued for UP BMUs.

The annual bear harvest exceeded 2,000 during those years. According to DNR bear population estimates, the number of animals at least a year old ranged between 8,500 and 9,000 in the UP during that time frame. So the number of UP bear licenses could be doubled without hurting the bear population.

Since bear licenses are $25 each, the sale of 5,000 more would generate $125,000 annually for the DNR. Reducing the UP bear population by 2,000 animals would potentially save 6,000 to 10,000 fawns per year along with some moose calves. Fewer bears would also result in fewer conflicts with humans.

Even if 10,000 bear tags were issued for the UP, bear hunting pressure would still be light. Taking the size of UP BMUs into account, except Drummond Island, in terms of square miles, there would be much less than one hunter per square mile under those circumstances. Current license quotas result in extremely light hunting pressure.

Bear hunting statistics from the neighboring state of Wisconsin show how much Michigan is underestimating and underharvesting its bear resource. Wisconsin’s bear population is estimated at a minimum of 25,000 and Michigan has more bear habitat than Wisconsin.

Wisconsin uses a mark recapture method for estimating its bears by using 500 bait stations surrounded by barbed wire to collect hairs from bears that visit the stations. DNA is extracted from hair samples and compared with the DNA of harvested bears.

Michigan simply uses harvest data obtained from bears registered by hunters to estimate bear numbers. The number of bears of each sex and age that hunters bring to registration stations are plugged into a computer model to try to determine how many bears were present to result in the annual harvest.

Because the most recent harvest data is necessary for this method, estimates are always a year or two behind the actual population. The computer model Michigan uses does not take into account the availability of natural foods in terms of how that can affect the annual harvest.

When natural foods are abundant, for example, the kill usually goes down even though there’s still plenty of bears present. Another shortcoming of the computer model is not all bears are registered even though registration is mandatory.

According to preliminary figures, Wisconsin bear hunters registered 4,285 bears during 2024 seasons compared to 2,026 in Michigan. Wisconsin is increasing its bear license quota to 13,110 for 2025 compared to the quota of 11,501 during 2024.