Northern Michigan Lawmakers Want to Secede from the State Game Commission and Form Their Own

A cohort of Michigan lawmakers are pushing for a drastic change in how the state manages its fish and wildlife — one that would effectively split the Mitten State in two. Their plan, introduced in the State House on Aug. 21, would involve the creation of a separate state game commission that would oversee just the Upper Peninsula, while leaving the rest of the state under the jurisdiction of the current game commission.

This is necessary, they say, because the U.P. is so vastly different from the lower two-thirds of the state, both in terms of its wildlife resources and the corresponding challenges it faces. They argue that it no longer makes sense for the traditional Natural Resources Commission to manage the region the same way.

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The four Republican lawmakers pushing for the change — State Reps. Karl Bohnak, Parker Fairbairn, Greg Markkanen, and Dave Prestin — all represent districts in the U.P. They say the pair of bills introduced last week would recognize and respect the unique natural-resource challenges facing their region, instead of continuing to rely on the current one-size-fits-all approach.

“It truly is a tale of two peninsulas,” Prestin said in a news release Wednesday announcing the proposal. “The U.P. has wolves and cougars, the Lower Peninsula does not. Moose in our peninsula, elk in theirs.”

Prestin also brought up Michigan’s whitetail deer, which are maybe the best example of the different management needs facing the two regions. In the U.P., as in other parts of the Northwoods, whitetail populations are suffering, while in the lower parts of Michigan, deer populations are exploding. This is due in part to the high level of predation that Upper-Peninsula whitetails face compared to their southern counterparts, which don’t have wolves to worry about. Deer are now so over-populated that they’re impacting farming operations. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources also blames harsh winters and habitat loss as limiting factors for U.P. whitetails.

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Markkanen said in Wednesday’s announcement that this imbalance with Michigan’s deer “proves how ridiculous it is to try to make rules that apply to everyone simultaneously.” He argued that a more regionally focused approach would better address the unique challenges facing the state’s deer herds.

The legislation in its current form would establish the Upper Peninsula Resources Commission, which would function in basically the same way as the existing NRC agency. UPRC commissioners would be nominated by state lawmakers in the U.P. and then chosen and appointed by the governor, and they would serve two-year terms. The UPRC would oversee all hunting and fishing regulations within the U.P., while the NRC would keep that same regulatory authority over the rest of the state. The Michigan DNR would still be tasked with implementing and overseeing those regulations across the entire state.

The idea of a single state having dual game commissions is a radical one, even as fish-and-wildlife commissions in other states face shake-ups and other reforms. And while it would make Michigan unique from those other states, the NRC is certainly not the only commission in the country that’s trying to balance the varying wildlife challenges facing different regions. The legislation could also face an uphill challenge politically, since roughly 97 percent of the state’s voters (and most of its lawmakers) live in Lower Michigan. A similar bill that Markkanen supported in 2022 failed to gain any traction, according to the Daily Press.