Deer harvest totals across the U.P.
MARQUETTE COUNTY — With regular firearm season over, the Department of Natural Services is working on getting a number for the amount of deer harvested and the potential CWD contamination.
The DNR says that it was a below average hunting season with a 5-10% decrease of deer being harvested across the U.P. compared to 2018. The amount of harvests that were expected was cut short although due to the inclement weather.
“Although interestingly we probably would have seen more deer harvested if the weather would have been a little more cooperative,” said Brian Roell, Wildlife Biologist with the Michigan DNR. “When you look back prior to Thanksgiving when that first storm hit that’s when hunting got a lot more difficult. Deer started moving differently and some deer even started migrating.”
Even though regular firearm deer season is over there is still a few other hunting seasons that will give some the opportunity to harvest deer. These hunting seasons include muzzle loading and late antlerless firearm season as well as archery and late archery season.
The DNR would also like to ask anyone who does harvest a deer to drop the deer head to be sampled for CWD.
Here are the results for 7 stations in the Upper Peninsula:
