OK Given for Farmers to Hunt Deer
Published: Friday, May 30, 2025
Farmers in Michigan can kill deer throughout the growing season to protect their crops and choose anyone they want to join them in hunts.
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the Michigan Natural Resources Commission have teamed up to loosen the state's crop protection restrictions because of growing widespread complaints about yield losses from an exploding deer population.
The problem with crop damage from deer, in general, appears worse throughout the southern part of the state, said Eric Anderson, a soybean educator for Michigan State University Extension.
"Deer damage is right up there close to No. 1 as far as the farmers concerns," he said.
According to the MDNR's Wildlife Division, crop protection permits to kill female deer are now valid during the entire growing season instead of just one or two week intervals.
In addition, permits can be applied for in advance and activated once the crop is in the ground.
Crops eligible for protection permits were also expanded to include alfalfa, winter wheat and, in some cases, overwintered cover crops.
Farmers can also have family members, friends or anyone else who wants to take part join them in hunts to protect their crops.
Previously, farmers were restricted to choosing from a state designated list of shooters on who they could invite to take part in hunts.
The leaves on soybean plants because of their sugar content seem to be what deer like most on a farm's menu.
Deer eat other crops like corn, but soybeans seem more susceptible to damage because the plants emerge from the soil quicker, allowing them to be chewed throughout the growing season to where they're incapable of producing beans.
One farmer, John O'Hair, switched from soybeans to corn in some of his smaller fields that run along woods in Sanilac County.
The deer could simply step into his soybeans and satisfy their hunger without coming out of hiding.
"I just threw up my hands," he said.
Anderson said he's heard similar stories from growers in areas like Kalamazoo and St. Joseph counties.
"Some farmers I talked to have given up on some fields because they can't get a crop off of it," he said.
Farmer Rob Steenburgh serves on the Michigan Hunt Collaborative formed last year to try and help find ways to reduce crop losses from the overpopulation of deer.
Steenburgh grows mostly corn, soybeans and wheat on about 800 acres in Sanilac County.
In recent years, he estimated his soybean yield reductions on ground beside woods at 50 percent or more from deer.
"In some areas, they just decimate the whole thing," he said.
MHC hosts deer kills and does other things like encouraging youth to become interested in hunting deer because of a sharp decline in the number of hunters over the past 20 to 30 years.
Steenbergh welcomed the loosened restrictions as a first of what could take many steps to ease or solve the problem.
"There's a lot of work to be done. This isn't going to be a quick fix," he said.
Anderson said MSU educators and the Michigan Soybean Commission are currently looking at different possible ways of deterring deer through use of balloon figures that move in the wind to see if that will scare deer away from fields.
They're also experimenting with things like rotten egg and blood based repellents.
Anderson said researchers are also trying to determine yield potential if there were no deer browsing whatsoever in fields to help in deciding what should be done in areas where problems are greatest.
Also included in the studies is whether farmers can plant other things along wood lines strictly for deer to consume so they won't venture deeper into fields for soybeans and corn.
"Different approaches are being investigated but nothing definitive at this point," he said.
Anderson did say there are early indications deer seem attracted most to crops depending on their sugar content.
That could mean certain varieties of soybeans and crop with less of the sugar content desired by deer could be one of the possible solutions.
O'Hair said the loosened restrictions might help a little but a lot more should be done.
He suggested allowing bucks to be killed with crop protection permits and other things such as making the $100 permits available to farmers at no cost to encourage higher participation.
O'Hair said he understands DNR has to strike a balance in terms of public perception, but, in this case, the problem deserves extreme action.
"Maybe my personal ideas are a little more radical, but I'm the guy that's seeing my paycheck chewed up," he said.
O'Hair also expressed concern about the number of farmers willing to hunt deer in the heat and dense brush of summer and how many small meat processors busy with beef cattle and hogs will accept deer.
He said recovery and delivery once they're killed will have to be much quicker because of the higher temperatures.
"It's not like in November when you shoot a deer and you can hang it in your garage for the weekend and then take it somewhere to get it processed. When it's 85 degrees out there, the flies are on it," he said.
Anderson is optimistic about finding answers to the yield reductions from deer but it might take a combination of things to make a noticeable difference.
"It's a manageable issue but it's not, necessarily, a simple one, he said.
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