The deer herd in northern Michigan is down. The number of deer killed during the firearms hunting season is down. The number of hunters is down. But the number of deer infected with bovine tuberculosis -- which led to smaller herds in the first place -- is up.
So what is a DNR to do?
Despite the competing interests of hunters, hotel, motel and restaurant owners and farmers, they do have one thing in common: a demand that the Department of Natural Resources do something.
What that might be -- which problem do you solve at the risk of making another worse -- is the multi-million dollar question. So far, no one sees to have claimed the prize.
Despite years of trying to thin the deer herd in northern Lower Michigan in an effort to curb the spread of bovine TB, the incidence of the disease in deer herds -- a threat to both white tail deer and cattle -- increased in 2006 for the first time in four years, according to the DNR.
It's a puzzling and frustrating situation that can't be ignored. So what's next? More thinning of the herd?
At the same time, hunters are chafing at the overall reduction in the deer herd from the levels in the mid-1990s. They're even more fed up with the precipitous drop in the number of deer killed. Although the DNR claimed the herd in the northwest and northeast sections of northern Lower Michigan was up or at least the same as in 2006, the deer kill in northwest Lower Michigan was down 7 percent and 5 percent for all of the north. And that's a 7 percent reduction from a less-than-stellar 2006.
The result is that hunters are voting with their feet and heading for more deer-friendly pastures. As the number of hunters declines, so do the cabin and motel rentals, the restaurant meals, the groceries and beer purchases. It's a declining tide that is costing the region millions in lost revenue.
The DNR cannot ignore the TB threat to deer or, more importantly, to cattle. The disease spreads through animal-to-animal contact or when an animal eats feed tainted by a TB-carrying deer or cow. Fewer deer can presumably reduce the number of deer-cow contacts and, in turn, infection rates. But that didn't happen from '06 to '07.
The DNR has to find out why those numbers rose, and do it soon; then it must to come up with a better TB-eradication plan.
The sooner the DNR can stop issuing large numbers of doe permits used keep down the herd the sooner numbers will rise and the hunters return.
There must be a new target, a new strategy and better tactics if the DNR is to eradicate TB and raise the herd. Farmers, hunters and business people want nothing less.
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