WALKER, Mich. (WOOD) — Firearm deer season officially opens in Michigan on Friday, which is a key date for conservationists working to keep rampant population numbers down.

Recently, though, a declining population of hunters cannot keep pace with deer reproduction. That fact is having destructive consequences on the road — particularly in Kent County, which was recently identified as the number-one county for car-deer collisions in Michigan in 2023.

That makes for busy days for the Kent County “deer sheriff” and his expanding department.

“This job used to be part-time in the morning,” Andy Albertson told News 8. “You’d get the animals off the road and go do something else. … Now, we have two trucks doing this. I just work the north end of the county.”

Despite the reduced coverage area, Albertson has already collected more than 4,400 deer carcasses in 2024 alone, and things are just ramping up. 

“I would say now is peak season. Twenty-nine yesterday, I’d say. I’ve got 20 to get today, and I’ll have 15 to 25 every day until the snow flies,” he said. 

“It really just comes down to breeding season,” Chad Stewart, deer, elk and moose management specialist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, told News 8. “When they are focused on breeding, they aren’t necessarily focused on other things like avoiding cars.”

As for the year-over-year increases in car-deer crashes, Stewart said the collapse of another population has played a major role. 

“Since 2000, we have lost close to a quarter-million deer hunters in Michigan,” he said. “Additionally, 1 in 5 that are still hunting are 65 and over … so they won’t be hunting in 15 years.”

He added that the remaining hunters aren’t killing the right deer to keep the population down. 

“Those individuals who are participating tend to not take the number of antlerless deer to adequately balance or offset the growth potential of the white-tailed deer herd. Michigan has a tendency to shoot a lot more male deer.”

As for solutions, Stewart said there are a lot of conversations to be had, including further license reform to encourage more antlerless harvest.

Stewart said the state has tried to extend firearm seasons where it can, but that produces similar male-female splits, adding that 70% of active deer hunters in Michigan don’t purchase antlerless licenses at all. 

The state has also tried to lengthen bow season in January, but the limited traffic that time of year isn’t enough to cull the population of deer. 

“We do not have control of our deer herd in certain locations of the state,” Stewart said. “That makes it really challenging with increased conflicts, whether it is agricultural damage or deer-vehicle collisions.”