MARQUETTE COUNTY, Mich. (WJMN) – The Michigan Department of Natural Resources has a new way to report a successful deer hunt. You no longer need to physically bring your harvested deer into a deer hunting reporting station. The DNR now has a website to report your deer via the internet or you can also do so on their app. This new system, which was a pilot program last year saves time and travel for the hunter and allows the DNR to keep a real-time accounting of all the deer taken, their location, size, weight, and sex, including if it was antlerless or not including the number of points on the rack. According to DNR Wildlife Biologist, Brian Roell, this new process can be completed in just minutes.

“The only thing you got to do is click on the township where you’re hunting. So, you got to be within 36 miles of your, where you’re hunting. And that’s all the registration. So, you’re putting in the sex, the size of the box, how many points those kinds of things. And it gives us real-time data that helps us develop better regulations on what’s actually being harvested and where, so we can check up to the minute How many deer have been harvested here in Marquette County,” said Roell.

This new way of reporting also allows anyone to get an up-to-the-minute total of successful hunts in a specific county or the entire state.

“Generally, most of that data is available for the public to look at if they’re interested in knowing how many bucks were harvested or how many doses were harvested what season, what day was where most deer harvested all those kinds of things you can see right on that dashboard.”

Roell goes on to say that in addition to being more convenient, this new system greatly increases the accuracy of the data collected. DNR in-person facilities will still be available, but the electronic gathering of hunting data is recommended for most hunters.

“While we’ve cut back on as we don’t do as much in-person check station, things that we do normally do at the DNR office. We’re still here available so if you want to know the age of your deer, we have a few limited patches that we can still give out here at the DNR office. And we do have a scale if you’re interested in doing those things. All the kind of traditional things that we used to do are still available, but you just don’t have to come down here,” said Roell.

This year’s forecast indicates a smaller number of deer will be taken. This is because the number of successful hunts during archery season was down from years past.