Michigan hunters harvested almost 10 percent fewer white-tailed deer across the state last year, likely because of poor weather conditions and unusually late-standing corn crops that made hunting difficult during the regular rifle season, hunter data shows.
Across all Michigan deer hunting seasons, buck harvest slipped roughly 14 percent to 214,937 last year from 248,350 deer in 2008. Doe harvest also dropped to 229,111 from 241,573, or about 5 percent. A significantly higher percentage of those deer were taken in archery and late antlerless seasons in 2009 than in ’08, which increased roughly 10 and 30 percent, respectively.
Hunter success dipped by 4 percent statewide to an overall average of 47 percent in 2009.
“We had warm weather in a lot of the state, rainy weather in some areas and a lot of standing corn still up. Thirty percent (of corn) was harvested as opposed to 70 percent normally,” said Brent Rudolph, DNRE deer program leader.
The number of Michigan hunters dropped by about 1 percent to 686,392 this year from 693,817 in 2008, following a decade-long trend.
Source: MLive
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