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The population of white-tailed deer in the Southern Peninsula of Michigan has been fluctuating for years. After nearly going extinct in the late 1800s due to excessive hunting, the white-tailed deer population has now exponentially grown to 2 million in 1989. Growing by 1.5 million in less than 20 years, according to the Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) “White-Tailed Deer: Species Management” publication.
Being a keystone species, as Deer Biologist Samantha Courtney has described, they “have the ability to alter the ecological community around them for better or worse.”
Courtney continued, saying “in areas where you have really high deer densities, where they’re over their carrying capacity, they’re going to have a really negative effect on the ecosystem.”
Some of these negative ecological effects that Courtney included were over browsing the forests, which can prevent forest regeneration, having a greater effect on the small mammal community and their own community by eating themselves out of an area of shelter.
As generalists, which can be defined by the National Geographic Society as a species that “can feed on a wide variety of things and thrive in various environments,” the deer are able to eat any vegetation that they can reach, especially in the winter when their food supply is more limited.
Not only do these keystone species have a direct effect on the other mammal species in their environments, but they also allow for invasive species to spread. By clearing out most native vegetation in forests, the deer allow for invasive species to come into those sensitive areas and take over.
How has the deer population increased so quickly in the last half century?
Courtney explains this is caused by the decrease in hunters in the past 25 years, she said “since 2000, we’ve lost 200,000 hunters and we’re projected to lose another 100,000 hunters in the next 10 years.”
To slow down deer populations, with barely any natural predators in southern Michigan, hunters are the only answer for the DNR.
To keep a stable population, 35 to 40% of the deer herd needs to be removed each year. To see a decrease in the population, 60 to 70% of the deer herd needs to be removed for multiple years in a row, according to the DNR and Courtney.
As a hunter, it is also important to keep in mind that hunting the male species in a herd has little to no effects on the population size. The correct way to limit this, is to hunt the females in a herd as they have the real effect on the size of their population.
Deer’s natural predators do include wolves, bears, and coyotes; however, in 1838 a bounty was established to hunt wolves in the lower peninsula of Michigan and by 1910 wolves were extirpated from all the lower peninsula according to The International Wolf Center.
With no wolves in the lower peninsula, a large group of the white-tailed deer population had no natural predators to prevent population growth.
This increase has caused the previously mentioned ecological effects, but there are also economic factors to think about.
According to WEMU, a radio station, their “Issues of the Environment” section, by David Fair says that in Michigan, farmers have reported losing up to 20% of their crops to deer grazing in a single season.
To fix this looming problem that the lower peninsula of Michigan has, there needs to be an understanding of why the newer generation is less inclined to become hunters.
As older hunters are leaving the profession, there are not enough people in the younger generation who want to take up this responsibility, as Courtney mentioned earlier.
The hunters that are left in Michigan need to learn that to limit the ecological and economic problems that are showing up, they need to hunt the does in the herds instead of just trophy hunting. Having steady numbers of deer, of both genders, hunted each season is the best way to limit this problem.
Written by Bridgette Shroll