JACKSON — Hunters would have been required to report deer harvest under a newly proposed law in House Bill 816. However, the bill died in the Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks senate committee. Chairman Ben Suber did not return a phone call or reply to an email asking about the bill last week. 

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. As previously reported by The Daily Leader, MDWFP Deer Program Coordinator William McKinley stated it was a needed tool to manage the state’s deer herd at a county level. 

Rep. Bill Kinkade authored the bill and argued Mississippi was the only state in the US without mandatory deer harvest reporting in the House. 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. 

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.