Whitmer’s Assault on Hunters Creating Real Problems for Michigan

While some people aren’t fans of hunting, the truth is that hunters are a major part of conservation efforts. Hunting keeps animal populations under control to some degree or another, which reduces various problems within a given state.

For example, when I was a kid, hunting deer meant bucks were fair game all season long, but does could only be shot on special days. Doe Days were like a hunting holiday. Everyone was in the woods to grab one, and, in time, the deer herds grew in Georgia.

Today, things are different. Deer are everywhere, and they cause a problem by crossing in front of cars and creating traffic accidents. As a result, does are fair game all year round.

In Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer doesn’t seem to be a fan of hunting, and neither is the legislature. They’re looking to raise fees even as they face a significant problem:

Exploding deer numbers are “causing big problems in suburban and urban areas of Michigan,” and many believe Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s focus on hiking fees for hunters will only make matters worse.

The issue stems from a steady decades long decline in the number of deer hunters in Michigan, which reduces the state’s license revenue while “causing big problems in suburban and urban areas of Michigan, including excessive deer car crashes … deadly car crashes, damage to homes, businesses, the environment, and major crop damage across the state,” WDIV reports.

Michigan ranks second among states for deer collision claims at roughly $130 million in damages annually, as deer-related crashes in recent years hit a decade high.

Communities are now trying to get the state’s Department of Natural Resources to step in and offer solutions.

DNR asked the public for comment. Many people suggested reducing fees and increasing access for hunting, since that would drive down the deer population, especially when people learn how tasty venison is.

Instead, DNR suggested raising the fees roughly 50 percent, because that makes perfect sense if you’re insane.

Deer collisions are a problem, they’re probably tearing up stuff in suburban neighborhoods–that rarely makes the statistics–and are becoming more than wildlife; they’re becoming a nuisance, and their answer is to make hunting harder?

Message to the Fudds: People like Whitmer will never like you. They’ll never stop at just taking our “evil black rifles.” They see you has a problem, too, and they’ll screw you over in due course. This is just how they think they can get away with it right now.

What Whitmer and Democrats in the state seem to be doing here is to make hunting more difficult, probably because anti-hunting groups are closely aligned with anti-gun groups–the Venn diagram of the two groups look like a top-down picture of a stack of pancakes–and they know who is going to donate to their future campaigns.

So, hunters get screwed, communities get screwed, and anti-hunting politicians make bank.

And then, when car insurance premiums keep going up to cover the increase in people hitting deer, they’ll try to somehow regulate that and screw everything up all over again.

That’s apparently life in Michigan these days.