Communities in southern Michigan with growing deer populations are increasingly pursuing a regional approach to managing herds.
The coalitions' goals are multi-faceted: human safety, by reducing car crashes with deer, reducing overbrowsing and protecting biodiversity in natural areas, and keeping herds of deer out of neighborhoods and people's yards.
The Kent County Deer Management Coalition involves partners like Grand State Valley University, the state Department of Natural Resources, the state Department of Transportation, the Kent County Road Commission, and multiple local governments.
Jerry Byrne, the managing director of the Kent County Road Commission, said until recently, Kent County held the unenviable position of the county with the most car crashes involving deer in the state of Michigan. Oakland County has now taken that No. 1 spot, he said.
The Kent County coalition is taking a number of steps to reduce human-deer conflicts, Byrne said. One non-lethal approach is mowing the sides of roadways, so deer and drivers can see each other and avoid accidents.
Other actions include arranging with the state DNR for additional permits to allow farmers to shoot more deer on their properties, and an app that connects farmers willing to allow hunters access to their lands to hunt deer.
Soon, the coalition will also be working with communities that want to have professional sharpshooters reduce the size of the local herd.
He says they do not use the word, "cull," to describe these activities.
"When people think of a cull, they think we are going to eliminate the herd," Byrne said. "We are going to help manage the herd so it's sustainable for the environment — and the deer are not going to then be harvested with a car."
The coalition has also hired a wildlife biologist to oversee the programs and conduct surveys to identify problem areas in the county experiencing lots of deer-human crashes and other conflict.
A deer management coalition involving Farmington Hills, Farmington, and Southfield has also hired a wildlife biologist.
Karen Mondora, the city manager for Farmington Hills, said a wildlife biologist has a unique set of skills the cities don't possess.
"This wildlife biologist will coordinate with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to implement the cities' respective deer management plans, which were adopted in 2025," Mondora said, "and they'll also respond to and document resident emails and phone calls regarding wildlife concerns."
Mondora said the biologist will also develop and recommend educational resources for the community, and not just related to deer.
"Really, we do get a lot of inquiries about coyotes and geese and turkeys that seem to be more prolific these days," she said.
The Southeast Michigan coalition just concluded its first winter deer reduction program, involving sharpshooters from the USDA Wildlife Services Department. Mondora said they designed the first herd reduction to be somewhat conservative. Seventy deer were killed, she said, with 2,300 pounds of deer meat donated to local food banks via the Michigan Sportsmen Against Hunger program.
Mondora said community support for the management program is "mixed," but the primary concern for elected officials in the cooperating cities is safety for people.
Efforts to explore a similar regional effort in Washtenaw County communities are already running into political opposition from the Humane Society of Huron Valley, which also opposed the hiring of professional sharpshooters in Ann Arbor in 2015. That program was abandoned by the city council four years later.
But in October, a majority of the council approved a resolution directing city officials to study the possibility of a regional deer management program.
Whether such a program would include neighboring Scio Township is unclear. Township trustees tabled a resolution to fund a deer management study in early October, after pushback from the Humane Society, some residents and some trustees.
Officials with the Humane Society of Huron Valley, along with others, say government programs to shoot deer to manage the size of deer herds are cruel and unnecessary.
They say humans should change their own behaviors to avoid conflict with deer, including limiting suburban housing development, slowing down while driving, not planting things in yards that deer like to eat, and, if necessary, sterilizing deer.
