ESCANABA — The firearm deer season is at a close, and reported whitetail harvest numbers in Delta County mimic those in the Upper Peninsula, Michigan, and the Midwest as a whole. The quantity of deer harvested in 2023 dropped significantly compared to last year, and while the unexpected decrease is not easily explained by any one factor, DNR Wildlife Biologist Joe Sage pointed out that “one year does not make a trend.”

This is the second year of Michigan’s mandatory harvest reporting, an implementation wherein hunters are required to inform the DNR of the date and general location of a deer harvest along with whether the deer had antlers and how many points. That information must be supplied within 72 hours and may be provided over the phone, online, via the Michigan DNR Hunt Fish app or at a DNR office. The DNR collected this data previously, but it was done by different methods — the same information was gathered in 2021 through post-season surveys by mail.

“One of the really cool things about this new mandatory harvest reporting is we’re getting data on the season in almost real time,” said Sage, who works in the Upper Peninsula Region and spoke with the Daily Press at the DNR’s Escanaba Customer Service Center. “We’ve never had this level of detail.”

In Delta County, hunters reported 405 total deer as having been taken on Nov. 15 (opening day) this year. Compared to last year’s 538, that’s a 25% decrease. The number of antlered deer (bucks) reported from the county on opening day dropped from 448 to 375, making for a 16% drop. The Delta County statistic that jumped the furthest was the number of reported antlerless harvests on opening day — in 2022, 90 antlerless were reported; in 2023, 30. That’s a 67% decrease in the number of antlerless deer shot at a time when the DNR is encouraging people to take more does to help keep the deer population down.

In the U.P., opening day totals dropped from 3,841 in 2022 to 2,696 in 2023 (a 30% decrease). The antlered count went from 3,400 to 2,489 (a 27% decrease). The antlerless harvest dropped from 441 to 207 (a 53% decrease).

Live counts are posted online at the DNR website, but since reports are up to 72 hours behind, the totals for the entire firearm season won’t be complete until the end of Sunday, December 3.

On opening day this year, the high temperature recorded at Delta County Airport in Escanaba was 57 degrees. The high temperature recorded on the same date last year was 37 degrees. Deer are known to be less active in warmer weather.

“Those first several days in gun season, the weather was unusually warm, and so that had the deer hunkered down a lot more than usual. But even now that it’s gotten colder, people are still reporting not hearing very many shots and not seeing very many deer,” said Sage. “What’s strange, though, is a lot of people did have a lot of deer before season on camera. So where did they go? They’re here somewhere.”

The number of hunters has been dwindling each year, but only at a rate of about 1% each year — a simple measurement determined by the number of licenses sold.

“It’s definitely more than just declining hunter numbers this year,” Sage said. “The weather’s part of it. But there’s got to be other things going on here.”

He said that according to DNR data, predator numbers have not changed. Some people have suggested a late corn harvest may be responsible for deer not taking hunters’ bait.

“When you’re going all through this in real time, sometimes it takes a little while to figure out exactly what’s happening out there in the woods. And especially with it being a widespread trend across the Midwest, it’s got a lot of people scratching their heads. A lot of people have theories, but it might take us a bit to figure that out.”

However, fluctuations are normal.

“One bad year doesn’t panic us,” Sage said.