Opening Day for Firearm Deer Season

Tomorrow is opening day for firearm deer season in Michigan. Deer Biologist with the Michigan DNR Chad Stewart joins us to discuss safety if you are heading out. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is West Michigan's morning News. Steve Kelly Tony Brooks
is in for Bretton Schmidt. He's back with us soon.
Tomorrow is the And here's the statistic for you around
the campfire tonight as you all get ready. This is
the one thirty first firearm deer hunting season here in
the state of Michigan. Dear biologist Chad Stewart on the
liveline with the DNR this morning. Chad, thanks for doing

(00:22):
this today.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Thanks for having me, Seve.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
I don't know what we did before nineteen I'm sorry,
eighteen eighty eighteen ninety four. I'm guessing it was just
always deer season in those days. But what do we
need to know about sunrise tomorrow? Because sunrise is actually
observed at different times in the state.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, we've got our hunting deer regulations, our digest that's
out there that shows you when the exact when the
exact firearm season starts for your part of the day,
it's really a half hour before sunrise, so there's always
a couple of minutes difference from east to west. But
you know, the main thing to know is I like

(01:02):
to impress on people the importance of November fifteenth. November
fifteenth was the date that was first started back in
nineteen twenty five, so it's not quite the one hundred
year anniversary, because there were some years there in the
nineteen sixties where they experimented with different starting dates, but
it's by and large held true for that entire nearly

(01:24):
one hundred year period of the starting date, and that's
incredibly significant and important to hunters. And we expect probably
several hundred thousand people to be out in the woods
this weekend and close to four hundred thousand hunters over
the next two weeks participating in this firearm season, and that.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Marks an increase in licenses that you've seen sold so far.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Right, Yeah, it's interesting. Our historical trend has been on
a downward trajectory, and that's just simply because we're not
getting younger hunters involved as much as our older hunters
are getting out of it. But since twenty twenty when
we saw spike, we've actually held pretty steady and actually
seen flight increases. So you know that that time in

(02:08):
twenty twenty when everything was kind of shut down, it
seems like it's sort of invigorated people to get back
out into the woods and that's had some staying power
and people by and large have been participating in hunting
at higher rates than before that pandemic.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
Hey chat Dave Wheaton, and quick question for you that
we've had a recent case actually just popped up within
the past few days of chronic wasting disease down in
Elegant County and I know that it is in about
sixteen different counties throughout the state. How big of an
issue is it? What hunters need to watch for? And
if you come across it, you take a deer that

(02:45):
has this, what do you do?

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah? Great questions. You know, chronic wasting disease is it's
definitely a disease we have concerns of not for the
present day deer population in terms of the impacts. It's
a very slow move moving disease. But long term, you know,
what is chronic wasting disease going to be in state
of Michigan ten years from now, twenty years from now?

(03:07):
And is there anything we can do to try to
minimize those impacts you know, down the line. So that's
where the real concern comes in. It's really considered a
deer specific disease. So that being said, recommendations are not
to consume a deer that is known to be positive.
So we always encourage hunters in the core areas, which
is really in and around Montcalm County northeast Kent County,

(03:30):
to get their deer tested before they consume it if
that's an important thing for them. But other than that,
most hunters shouldn't have to be thinking about this, worrying
about this. It's still a very rare disease on the landscape.
If you see a deer that looks very skinny and
is acting sick, certainly report it and we were happy

(03:52):
to get it tested because those are symptoms that are
consistent with chronic wasting disease in the late stages.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Lastly, when it comes to rules and REGs that are
up there for your safety, tell us about the app,
which I think is a brilliant upgrade.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah, we've got our app. It's available on I think
most of the app stores are not a technology guy,
but you know the big ones. It's called Michigan Michigan
d n R. Hunt Fish and it's a great thing
that we've just done. One. Uh, you can purchase your
licenses on there and what's what's even great is you
can sign up for automatic renewal of license so you
never forget to get those licenses, so that's a good one.

(04:28):
You can see all your tags on there, You've got
all your history, all your drawing points for like elk
and bear. The other cool thing about it is we
have an up to date real time deer harvest like
calculator or or measure, and so you can go on
there in one minute and see how many deer have
been reported for each season in each county for the

(04:51):
entire state, and then refresh it two minutes later, and
that numbers changed as those those reports come in. So
it's a really cool sort of if you're if you're
a dear data nerd like i am, that's a really
cool thing to follow.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
That is Chad Stewart, dear biologist with the Michigan Department
of Natural Resources. Thank you for your time today.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Thanks for having me, guys,