Retired biologist pens letter on proposed deer changes in Michigan

Crystal Falls, Mich. — Prior to the May 13 meeting of the Michigan Natural Resources Commission, a retired DNR wildlife biologist who has remained active by serving on a deer habitat group sent a letter voicing opinions to proposed deer season changes.

Jim Hammill, who worked in the western UP for 30 years before he retired, noted that managing deer was an important part of his responsibilities as a wildlife biologist. In the letter to the NRC, he recommended that harvest regulations, seasons dates and lengths remain the same as they were during 2025.

He also recommended that the DNR “recommit to improving winter range for deer on all DNR lands” and assembling “deer advisory teams that are committed to the use of sound wildlife science instead of personal opinion in their deliberations.”

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The DNR currently has two deer advisory groups – one for the Upper Peninsula and one for the Lower Peninsula. Both advisory groups recommended that the buck bag limit in the state be changed from two to one to improve the buck-to-doe ratio and age structure of bucks. But nowhere in the DNR memorandum to the NRC recommending a change in the buck bag limit does it include any mention about what the current buck-to-doe ratio is in the state nor the goal for the change.

Information that is included in the DNR memo is the percentage of hunters in the state that are successful in shooting two bucks per year. Only 1% to 3% of UP hunters manage to fill two buck tags per year.

The average is 4% to 5% in the northern LP and 5% to 7% in the southern LP where deer numbers are highest.

“I was deeply disappointed in the suggestions and tenor that came out of the U.P. deer advisory group,” Hammill wrote in his letter to the NRC. “Very few if any of the suggestions have merit. All of the good science that has been gleaned through the years about the deer resource has obviously been disregarded. Further, the department’s longstanding policy of providing a broad spectrum of public recreation has also been abandoned. The current (2025) regulations were forged with decades of sound science, public input, and hard fought discussions over best management of deer. The current deer advisory group is simply a mouthpiece for individuals and groups to further their agenda, with no regard for our hard-won knowledge of UP deer biology.”

Hammill said that one of the most glaring pieces of misinformation is the claim that the UP has an imbalance of sex ratios.

“This belief leads to recommendations to curtail the harvest of bucks, increase doe harvest, and seriously curtail hunting seasons,” his letter states. “Hunters across the UP have for years reported a ratio of 3 to 1 (does to bucks) from their hunting experience. In my view this is a healthy and necessary ratio.”

In recent years, Hammill continued, “the age class of harvested bucks in the UP has been getting older. This is also positive and reflects, more than anything, that hunters are becoming more selective and that the regulations we have in place are giving the hunting public options that best fit their personal use of the deer resource. In the southern UP, does need to be aggressively harvested, and the department has regulations in place to do that.

“I recall a wise DNR deputy once saying, ‘The DNR should never forget that our job is to provide maximum recreational opportunities tempered by good science.’ Overall, I believe DNR has done that. The deer regulations being pondered now represent a step back, a disregard for science, and a nod to the slippery slope of regulation by popular opinion. The abandonment of good science for political expediency has been an obvious and troubling trend in DNR management for years and now appears to be intensifying.”

The DNR’s recommendation to go to a statewide one-buck bag limit in 2027 and to shorten the December muzzleloader deer season from 10 to three days this year were also presented at the NRC’s April meeting. Some proposed amendments to those recommendations were mentioned at the April meeting, but not voted on.

One of those amendments was to change the buck bag limit starting this year.

Another was to shorten firearm deer season from 16 to nine days, with a 7-day “quiet period” before opening day.

Amendments to the original recommendations were voted on at the May meeting.