JACKSON — Hunters would be required to report deer harvest under a newly proposed law in House Bill 816. The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks currently has a phone application, webpage and telephone number for hunters to voluntarily report harvest through the GameCheck program but mandatory harvest reporting is a needed management tool.

Rep. Bill Kinkade authored the bill and argued Mississippi was the only state in the US without mandatory deer harvest reporting Tuesday. Kinkade mentioned the House had entertained a similar program in the past. In 2022, the Mississippi House passed a bill which would have created mandatory deer harvest reporting but it died in the Senate. 

“We were the first state to implement a Deer Management Assistance Program,” Kinkade said. “We have had the vision to have management but not a foresight for reporting.”

A needed tool

Under the bill, the reporting system would be similar to the agency’s GameCheck application which is voluntary for deer. It takes about 20 seconds at the most to record a deer or turkey harvest and the MDWFP application was designed to save the data even if someone doesn’t have cell service and report when the phone has signal again. 

The ability to measure and collect data is part of wildlife management. William McKinley, MDWFP Deer Program Coordinator, said he needs the tool of mandated reporting to help him better manage the deer herd at not just the state level but the regional and county level. 

“I need this tool in the tool chest for better managing the population and to provide recommendations on a regional and subregional basis,” McKinley said. “It would help us know how Chronic Wasting Disease has affected harvest in high prevalence areas and when it affects harvest. It would help us know populations on a county or regional level so we can better set regulations to be more in tune with the area’s deer herd.

Mandatory reporting would also be a tool to help game wardens catch outlaws and perhaps limit illicit activity. For example, last year a hunter from a neighboring state with mandatory harvest reporting killed a deer illegally, as an unlicensed hunter. The deer tested positive for CWD after it was brought across state lines from the neighboring state. The deer was brought into Mississippi for processing because the state does not currently have mandatory harvest reporting. 

Mississippi state law requires the Mississippi legislature to implement mandatory deer harvest reporting while the MDWFP has the ability to establish a tagging program for turkeys. 

MDWFP commissioners voted to implement a physical tagging system for turkeys in 2023 which was initially set to begin this year. Due to a change in the agency’s licensing vendor, the tagging system will be implemented in the 2026 spring turkey season and will offer electronic tagging. 

A voluntary program like GameCheck has not collected all of the data needed by the MDWFP to inform management decisions. As of January 30 at noon, 4,103 deer harvests were reported on GameCheck, a fraction of the 279,000 estimated deer harvest in the 2023-2024 season. Submitted CWD samples this season outnumber the reported harvests on GameCheck as well.

Managing without reporting

One legislator asked how the MDWFP is able to manage a deer herd without mandatory reporting. Well, it starts with hunter harvest surveys. McKinley said the MDWFP contracts with a third party vendor to survey five percent of licensed hunters after the spring turkey season. In the survey, hunters are asked how many deer, turkeys, squirrels, quail and etc. they killed.

The survey data is then extrapolated out 95 percent to come up with a harvest estimate. Mississippi has used the same system since the 1980s although it was originally a mail survey. McKinly said unlicensed hunters, those who are exempt from buying a license for one reason or another, are not included in the survey and Mississippi does not have a way to know how many deer are killed by unlicensed hunters. 

Many states who use mandatory reporting of deer harvest compare the numbers with survey data to get a gauge for compliance. 

McKinley said the deer program then takes the harvest estimate and uses age structure data from deer data collection points on public and private lands to generate a population reconstruction in models. Mandatory reporting would give the agency a better understanding of harvests and population. 

“We could then identify areas of high, medium and low populations and harvests across the state and any changes therein. We get a lot of observation reports from hunters and sometimes they correspond to population or deer movement,” McKinley said. “Tracking population and harvests in real time would show if the herd is up or down in a county over time.”

If passed, it could take five years for the MDWFP to have data to start looking at trends in counties. Hunter compliance would also take time as other states have found. 

McKinley wanted to stress the mandatory reporting is not just about disease management but it could help answer questions he gets often in north Mississippi. Data in north Mississippi could in turn help answer future questions for the implications of CWD in nearby Warren and Claiborne Counties where positives have grown. 

“I’m asked all the time how the harvest is affected by CWD and I can only go by anecdotal evidence. I can’t quantify that. Harvest reporting would help me quantify that,” McKinley said.

One legislator asked Kinkade if the reporting program would include depredation permits. Kinkade told the legislator Mississippi does not have a harvest reporting program for depredation permits. Hunters raised questions about the impact of depredation permits on local populations in Sept. 2024 at a MDWFP Commission meeting.

Under the bill, hunters would be required to report deer harvests as they are already required to report turkey harvests. The reporting would be done electronically and would be quick and simple. There are options for calling a 1-800 number to report the harvest or recording the harvest on paper. Any violation of the law would result in a Class II citation with a fine between $100 to $500. 

Mississippi’s House of Representatives voted to pass the bill 79-29 Tuesday. Lincoln County Rep. Vince Mangold voted for the bill while Rep. Beckie Currie voted against the bill. If the bill is passed by the senate and signed by Gov. Tate Reeves it would go into effect July 1, 2025.