One U.S. State Has Lost 200,000 Deer Hunters – Here’s Why

Michigan used to be a deer-hunting powerhouse.

Camp coffee, orange vests, and buck poles were practically a fall holiday.

But over the last quarter-century, something fundamental shifted.

According to a televised report by Kyle Makin for Mid-Michigan Now on FOX66 and NBC25, Michigan has lost more than 200,000 hunters since the mid-1990s – a 30% decline from 1995 to 2023. State biologists say that slide isn’t just cultural; it’s changing the deer herd, the roads, and the Department of Natural Resources’ budget.

And if you talk to Michigan’s hunters and wildlife staff, you hear the same refrain: this didn’t happen overnight, and it won’t be fixed with one new rule.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

The scope of the drop is hard to miss. Makin reports that DNR officials tie the decline to aging hunters, less access to private land, and fewer youth picking up the tradition.

WOOD TV8’s statewide segment, “Michigan deer hunting season by the numbers,” backs it up with a fast snapshot: the hunter base is down about 30% over 25 years, and deer numbers have surged past two million, with a heavy concentration in southern Michigan.

That imbalance has consequences.

As Makin’s report explains through DNR specialists, more deer means more vehicle collisions, crop damage, and disease risk.

The crash data is sobering.

WOOD TV8 cites a state study showing 58,000 deer-vehicle crashes in 2023 alone.

Why Hunters Are Disappearing

Aging out is the biggest, simplest answer.

In Makin’s piece, longtime hunter Larry Petrella says he sees fewer young faces in the woods and more older hunters hanging it up. 

He remembers racing to hunt with his dad and uncles. That torch isn’t being passed as easily.

Another factor is time and mobility.

Brent Rudolph, the Michigan DNR’s deer, elk, and moose management specialist, tells Makin that younger people are juggling “five, six, seven” activities, chasing scholarships, and often moving away for college. 

Hunting demands time, mentorship, and access – three things that scatter when you’re constantly on the move.

WWMT-TV’s Mackenzie Dekker adds a near-term hurdle: weird weather. She notes the opening week of the early archery segment arrived with 80-degree temperatures, not exactly crisp-fall conditions. 

That doesn’t cause a 25-year decline, but it can dent participation in a season’s crucial first days.

Dekker’s interview with MDNR deer biologist Chad Stewart hits the structural point: older hunters are “simply not being replaced at the same rate.” 

When the pipeline of youth and twenty-somethings thins out, the long curve bends downward.

When Fewer Hunters Meet More Deer

Michigan’s herd can grow fast.

Stewart tells Dekker that hunters are the primary population control across the state. Reduce the number of hunters, and you eventually get more deer than the landscape – or drivers – can comfortably handle.

Rudolph explains the ecological side in Makin’s piece. He describes the telltale browse line in woodlots where deer have eaten everything they can reach. 

That means competition with other species, habitat degradation, and in lean winters, starvation.

Disease risk climbs with density. Both Makin’s report and WOOD TV8’s segment flag chronic wasting disease and bovine tuberculosis as higher-probability problems when deer are “packed together,” as Rudolph put it. That’s not fear-mongering; it’s epidemiology.

And then there’s the farm belt.

More deer in southern Michigan means more crop damage at exactly the place deer numbers have swelled the most.

The Hidden Budget Problem

Fewer hunters doesn’t just change the woods; it shrinks the checkbook.

Makin highlights a budget reality that often surprises non-hunters. About 47% of Michigan’s wildlife budget comes from federal funds, and a big piece of that is driven by Pittman-Robertson – the long-standing excise taxes on guns, ammo, and related gear.

Here’s the kicker Rudolph explained: allocations are influenced by the number of licensed hunters in a state.

If license sales slide, Michigan’s share of federal conservation dollars can slide too.

That means fewer hunters can ultimately translate into fewer habitat projects, fewer access initiatives, and fewer public services that benefit everyone – birders, hikers, paddlers, and yes, hunters.

What Michigan Is Trying Already

The Michigan DNR isn’t sitting still. Makin reports the agency has lowered the minimum hunting age, launched mentor licenses, extended seasons, and offers free hunter safety classes to reduce friction for newcomers.

Public land is part of the solution. Makin points viewers to the DNR’s public land maps—a big deal in a state where private-land access is a growing barrier.

There’s also a private-sector push.

In Dekker’s story, Mark Kruizenga, owner of Kruizenga Archery, says he’s fighting for the next generation with free range time for kids under 16 and both indoor and outdoor practice options. 

He’s blunt about the competition: “We’re battling TV and phones in the hunting world right now.”

That’s exactly right.

Hunting today is often competing with a screen and a schedule.

The Near-Term Curveballs: EHD, Weather, and Winter

Not all headwinds are cultural. Dekker notes the EHD (epizootic hemorrhagic disease) outbreak in parts of the southern Lower Peninsula, which can dent local populations and dampen enthusiasm in hot spots.

WOOD TV8 reminds viewers that the Upper Peninsula’s heavy snow last winter could cut numbers in some northern units, while spring ice storm damage and hot early-season days can complicate hunter success elsewhere.

Those are short-term variables layered on top of a long-term participation decline.

Together, they can make a season look softer than it “should,” which feeds the sense that hunting is fading faster than it really is.

R3, But With a Michigan Accent

Recruitment, Retention, and Reactivation (R3) isn’t a new idea.

But the sources in these Michigan reports – Makin, Dekker, Rudolph, Stewart, Kruizenga – point to very specific levers that could fit the state’s reality.

Here’s what I’d double down on:

Make access the easy button.

Expand public-land wayfinding in the southern counties where the deer are thick but private gates are thicker. Bundle beginner antlerless tags with first-timer access guides to close the map-reading gap.

Own the calendar.

Create more short, family-friendly weekend seasons and after-school micro-hunts near metro areas. If youth sports own Saturdays, meet them on Sundays.

Mentor at scale.

The mentor license is great; now recruit mentors the way you recruit coaches. Offer perks—extra antlerless tags, gear discounts, or camp lottery preference—for those who log real time with newcomers.

Fund the on-ramp.

Mini-grants to shops like Kruizenga Archery that offer free youth lanes, pop-up “try-archery” days, and crossbow basics can convert curiosity into competence.

Celebrate close-to-home success.

Spotlight suburban antlerless hunts, venison-donation programs, and wild-game cooking as proud, modern, ethical contributions – not just trophies.

And yes, keep hammering on safety, skills, and ethics.

Free hunter ed is a start; mentor-led field days are better. People stick with things they feel capable doing.

The Culture Still Matters

Larry Petrella’s memory of hunting with his dad and uncles isn’t nostalgia; it’s the blueprint.

These stories are how hunting regenerates itself.

The media packages from Mid-Michigan Now, WWMT-TV, and WOOD TV8 all hint at the same truth: without time together, a hand on the bowstring, and a first sunrise in the blind, the next generation won’t arrive on its own.

Hunting has to compete with screens.

But the woods have their own screen: a deer trail that tells you exactly what walked by last night. The trick is getting kids and twenty-somethings to step onto it – once.

Michigan’s decline – 200,000 fewer hunters since the ’90s – is real.

Kyle Makin’s reporting lays out the statewide picture and the DNR’s response. Mackenzie Dekker brings in biologist Chad Stewart and shop owner Mark Kruizenga to show how weather, disease, and culture intersect with recruitment. WOOD TV8’s statewide breakdown ties the participation drop to rising deer numbers, road crashes, and disease pressure.

You don’t reverse a 25-year slide with a single rule change.

But you don’t surrender to it, either.

Lower the barriers. Multiply the mentors. Bring hunting closer to where people live – and celebrate practical success, not just big racks.

Do that, and some of those 200,000 will be replaced by kids who one day say what Petrella did:

“I couldn’t wait to get outdoors.”

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