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IDNR Report

With the deer reduction zone season underway and the statewide archery deer season starting Oct. 1, Indiana Conservation Officers remind hunters to stay safe.
The various deer hunting seasons run through Jan. 31, 2023. It is estimated that more than 300,000 people will participate in some form of deer hunting in Indiana during that span.

The most common injuries during deer seasons are accidents involving tree stands and elevated platforms. Hunters should follow the safety tips listed below when hunting from an elevated position.

Before the hunt:

  • Read and understand the tree stand manufacturer’s instructions.
  • Check tree stands and equipment for wear, fatigue, and cracks or loose nuts/bolts, paying particularly close attention to parts made of material other than metal.
  • Practice at ground level.
  • Learn how to properly wear your full-body safety harness.

During the hunt:

  • Wear your full-body safety harness.
  • Use a tree stand safety rope.
  • Make certain to attach your harness to the tree before leaving the ground, and that it remains attached to the tree until you return to the ground.
  • Maintain three points of contact during ascent and descent.
  • Use boots with non-slip soles.
  • Use a haul line to raise and lower firearms, bows and other hunting gear.
  • Make sure firearms are unloaded, action is open, and safety is on before attaching them to the haul line.

Additional safety tips:

  • Carry emergency equipment, such as a cellphone and flashlight.
  • Make a plan before you hunt.
  • Tell someone your plan, including where you will be hunting and when you plan to return.
  • Stick to your plan.
  • Identify game before pointing a firearm.
  • Know your target and what is beyond it.

For more information, see hunting.IN.gov.  

By Chad Stewart - Michigan Deer Biologist

Deer hunterDeer hunter

The 2022 deer hunting season is upon us and is shaping up to be one of the more historically important hunting seasons Michigan has ever experienced.

In 2022, for the first time, hunters taking a deer in Michigan will have one additional step to complete beyond tagging their deer before they have finalized their harvest. Successful hunters will now be required to report their harvest online through Michigan’s new harvest reporting system or recently developed mobile app.

The good news is that successful hunters will have time, up to 72 hours, to report their harvest, so this final step doesn’t have to be done right away. The other good news is that when this system was tested in 2021, most hunters were able to complete the harvest report in under five minutes.  On average, reporting a buck harvest took about 30 seconds longer than reporting a doe harvest because of some additional questions about antler points. Hunters who harvested and reported multiple deer through the system seemed to work through the report faster the second time, which tells us that the report process is easily understood after someone goes through it once.

Why is Michigan moving to an online harvest report now after so many years? Or, why hasn’t Michigan done this sooner, the way that all surrounding states have done?  Those are great questions, and fortunately, there are answers.

For years, Michigan has estimated its deer harvest through a postseason harvest survey sent to a random subset of Michigan hunters. This survey and estimate are conducted using standard statistical protocols and allow our state to not only estimate harvest numbers by state, county, season, etc., but also to include confidence limits with each estimate. Very few states have been able to produce this type of estimate. This technique served us well in the past, but we are experiencing challenges with this system. For example, hunters do not respond to the harvest reports the same way they have in the past. In 2000, 74% of hunters receiving a survey returned it. In 2021, the response rate was 33%. These lower response rates create more uncertainty with our primary estimate. We feel it’s important to have confident harvest estimates to make the best, most informed management decisions for one of our most prized natural resources. We will continue to incorporate our deer hunter harvest survey, as we feel it still does a great job at estimating our harvest. However, the scale of the survey will be reduced since we no longer have to estimate our harvest beginning at zero deer for the year.

Speed of available information

The amount of information we’ll now have available, and the speed at which it is available, is one of the biggest advantages to this new system. Our new system, with its corresponding public-facing dashboard, will show hunters every day how deer harvest is progressing across the season, with up-to-date accounts on total harvest in the state, harvest by county, season harvest and even harvest by day.

Additionally, our state will be able to tie harvest to individual licenses, which is a feature we’ve been unable to incorporate previously. This means we’ll have a better understanding of how many hunters are using one of their combination license tags to take an antlerless deer in the archery season. Right now, we know what the estimated antlerless harvest is in the archery season, but don’t necessarily understand which licenses hunters are using to make their harvest decisions. We’ll also have a better understanding of reported harvests of button bucks, bucks with shed antlers and bucks with antlers less than 3 inches. Currently, all of those deer are reported as antlerless deer, but we have never been able to fully quantify the values for any of them.

Disease monitoring

Another function of the online reporting system will be the integration of disease monitoring information. Hunters reporting deer harvested in disease priority areas will receive notifications and instructions on submitting their deer for testing, should they choose to volunteer their deer for either chronic wasting disease or bovine tuberculosis testing>

MDNR Report

Michigan Deer PatchMichigan Deer Patch

This season marks the 50th anniversary of the Michigan DNR deer management cooperator patch, AKA deer hunter’s patch.

Brian Shaw from Spring Arbor created the winning 2022 deer patch design, which commemorates the 50th anniversary. The annual deer patch design contest is open to everyone and takes place in the spring. Artists can submit their original work showing deer or deer hunting in Michigan.

Hunters who want a patch to commemorate the deer season can purchase one online at Michigan.gov/DNRLicenses, or from the DNR Hunt Fish mobile app, for $8 while supplies last. This is an option that has been requested over the years, particularly by hunters who had to travel longer distances to get to a deer check station.

St. Joseph Co. Parks Report

St. Joseph County Parks will implement a deer management program at Bendix Woods County Park located in New Carlisle this November.

To emphasize deer population reduction, the management program will be an antlerless hunt.

Bendix Woods County Park consists of 195 acres with 27 acres dedicated as a state dedicated nature preserves, a classification given to high quality ecosystems. Review and approval for the deer management program was required by the Division of Nature Preserves of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. The district biologist for the Division of Fish and Wildlife assisted in the assessment.

MDNR Report

Whitetail DeerWhitetail Deer

Last year, nearly 7,000 deer hunters voluntarily reported their deer harvest online to help test the Michigan Department of Natural Resources’ new reporting system. Starting with the fall 2022 deer seasons, online harvest reporting is required for all hunters who successfully take a deer.

Chad Stewart, the DNR’s deer, elk and moose management specialist, said there are several reasons the department is moving to online harvest reporting, but one of the most important is more precise data. 
 
“The decline in response rate to our post-season mail surveys increases the amount of uncertainty in our harvest estimates, which can lead to incorrect regulation recommendations in some locations,” Stewart said.

Brian Frawley, the DNR wildlife biologist who manages the surveys, agreed.

“Twenty years ago, 75% of recipients responded to the survey, but in recent years we have seen a response rate consistently under 40%,” Frawley said. “If we’re going to provide hunters, wildlife managers and the Michigan Natural Resources Commission with timely, accurate data, we need to change how we collect it.” 

Reporting options

Hunters will have up to 72 hours after taking a deer to report their harvest. The DNR estimates it should take about three to five minutes to complete the report, and there are two ways to do it: