Much of the non-agricultural private land is forested with a mixture of upland forests and swamp. Other agriculture is dominated by variety of crops and pastureland where soils and landscape allow. Agricultural lands include orchards and vineyards near the Lake Michigan shoreline. The landscape is primarily private agricultural land mixed with forest in the central and western portions of the DMU. The remainder (19%) is in public ownership. Approximately 81% of the available deer range in the county is in privately held lands. The DMU consists of 503 square miles of land, consisting of 353 square miles of deer range (available habitat). We expect the population in this DMU to continue to grow in some areas, but the overall goal for the DMU is to stabilize deer numbers to maintain quality hunting opportunities and limit human:deer conflicts.Īntrim County Deer Management Unit (DMU 005) is in the Northern Lower Peninsula Region (NLP). We also propose to open the early antlerless season in this DMU. For 2020, we propose to increase antlerless tags on private land to 10,000 and 750 for public land. Over the last few years, hunter effort and antlerless harvest has declined while the population of deer appears to be increasing. In 2017, to allow the deer population to continue growth, it was recommended that private land antlerless quotas be reduced to 4,000 with the public land antlerless quota set at 50. In 2013 the combined quota was reduced to 8,900 (8,000 for private land, 900 for public land). Going back to 2009, the last year in which the Allegan DMU was an individual unit for private land antlerless licenses, 15,000 antlerless permits were available (12,000 for private land, 3,000 for public land). Antlerless tags for private land have been selling out earlier each year.
Crop damage has increased, as have deer vehicle collisions. Deer Managment Recommendationsĭeer in this DMU have likely been increasing the last three years. Success and harvest rates are thereby suppressed not by population decline, but by human decision-making processes. Ample hunting opportunities are provided because hunters may self-regulate harvest of antlerless deer for a variety of factors such as a perception of too few deer. Impact management refers to reduction of undesirable effects associated with deer over-abundance, such as crop damage, deer-vehicle collisions, and poor forest regeneration due to over-browsing are examples. Two main goals guide the deer management in this DMU: 1) impact management and 2) hunting opportunities. Allegan SGA has wetland complexes that are dominated by marsh species but some contain pockets of lowland conifers and shrub species. It has roughly 50,700 acres of State Game Area (SGA) Land which is about 9 percent of the total acreage in the county. These drier sandy soils tend to support mixes of oak, pines and red maple. Soils in the area vary from heavy clays, muck and sandy mixes. Agriculture constitutes for about half of the private lands composition throughout the DMU with woodlots spread throughout. There are early and mid-successional habitats that generate food and cover resources.
The Allegan County Deer Management Unit has a variety of suitable habitats for deer.
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