Weeks after many spent time in Michigan's great north woods hunting an elusive buck only to come back skunked, hunters from Monroe, Lenawee, and Hillsdale counties may want to look at the latest state deer population numbers before venturing north.

According to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, the heaviest concentration of deer in the state may be closer to Onsted than Ontonagon.

The state agency estimates more than double the number of deer are in the southern half of the lower peninsula - 868,000 - than there are in all of Michigan's upper peninsula.

While that's good news for local hunters, it's left state wildlife officials wondering how best to cull the southern herd down by about 300,000 while keeping the rest of the state's deer population at or near current numbers.

Officials from the Michigan DNR have planned a series of meetings next month to collect comments from the public before establishing new deer-population goals. The meetings will be conducted in each of the eight Wildlife Management units in Michigan, including the southeast unit, which includes Monroe County, and the south-central unit, which includes Lenawee and Hillsdale counties.

The closest meetings for the two units will be Jan. 4 at Eddy Discovery Center in Chelsea, Mich., and Jan. 19 at Summit Academy Schools in Romulus, Mich. Both meetings begin at 6 p.m.

However, comments also are being accepted by mail and

via email at Deer_Goals@michigan.gov.

In a written statement, Doug Reeves, field operations supervisor for the DNR Wildlife Division, said the deer-population goals help maintain the overall health of the animals as well as the habitat in which they live.

"Changes from the previous deer-population goals reflect changes in both biological and social conditions with the [different geographic areas]. Working through this process has allowed us to propose deer-population goals we believe to be appropriate for each Deer Management Unit in the state," Mr. Reeves said in the statement.

Once the population goals are established, the DNR will lay out the method by which those numbers should be reached, whether through increased hunting or other population-control methods.

Thinning the southern Michigan herd may mean more than just an open license for deer hunters; it could mean increased safety on area roadways.

According to the Michigan Office of Highway Safety Planning, the heaviest concentration of deer-automobile crashes in 2004 - the last year for which statistics are available - occurred in the south central part of the state, in a swath south from Lansing to the state line.

Indeed, Lenawee County's 752 crashes is more than double the 347 recorded during 2004 in the much heavier-traveled roads of Monroe County, while Hillsdale County recorded 1,023 crashes.

Contact Larry P. Vellequette at:

lvellequette@theblade.com

or 419-724-6091.

First Published December 27, 2005, 11:27 a.m.