By Carol Thompson, cthompson@detroitnews.com
Lansing — Michigan wildlife officials on Wednesday warned budget shortfalls could harm their ability to protect the state’s wildlife, prevent disease breakouts and manage conflicts between people and animals.
“For the past 18 months, the department has been sounding the alarm,” said Keith Kintigh, assistant chief of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources wildlife division. “We are rapidly losing the resources needed to uphold our responsibilities to Michigan’s fish and wildlife conservation legacy. While we have a long history of operating as a lean organization, things are starting to get difficult.”
Kintigh and other DNR wildlife and finance officials laid out their funding concerns to the Natural Resources Commission during the commission’s Wednesday meeting at Lansing Community College’s West Campus in Delta Township. Leaders of the department’s fisheries division gave a similar presentation in November in which they warned that inflation and stagnant revenue from license sales have resulted in reduced services and programs for anglers.
The wildlife division is facing the same problem, Kintigh said.
The division is charged with conserving animal life in Michigan, including hunted species such as deer, turkey and elk, as well as threatened or endangered species. The division also works on hunting regulations, habitat management, public hunting access and helps manage state forests.
Hunters and anglers pay for most of the wildlife division’s work through hunting and fishing license purchases and excise taxes on firearms and other equipment. Kintigh said raising license fees is the department’s only straightforward option for reversing its declining revenues without developing a new strategy for funding that work.
“Until Michigan has a broader conservation funding system where everyone who benefits from our shared legacy contributes, our only option is to continue asking hunters and anglers to carry this responsibility,” he said.
License sales have declined as hunters age and fewer young people take up the sport. Meanwhile, inflation has spiked the costs of projects. Kintigh said the wildlife division has lost $12.5 million in purchasing power over seven years as a result and is “functioning on duct tape and a dream.”
Legislative efforts to increase hunting and fishing license fees failed in 2024 and 2025 despite garnering some bipartisan support.
Hunting license fees have not kept up with inflation, Kintigh said Wednesday, especially compared to the rise in other hunting costs such as deer processing. They also are cheaper in Michigan than other states in the region.
An annual base license, which is required to hunt in Michigan, costs $11 per adult resident. The base license allows residents to hunt small game and to buy additional hunting licenses. A deer license for a Michigan resident costs an additional $20.
A hunting/fishing combo license, which includes a base license, two deer licenses and an annual all-species fishing license, costs residents $76.
“We are essentially discounting their cost, and as a consequence, reducing the budgets for all of the programs and services that these licenses pay for,” Kintigh said of license fees holding steady despite inflation. “The only sustainable long-term solution is some type of inflationary adjustment and or an alternative source of state funding.”
Rep. Ken Borton, R-Gaylord, in October criticized the DNR’s attempts to increase hunting and fishing license fees.
“The DNR already has plenty of resources; if they believe they need additional funding, they should look within instead of pursuing fee hikes that will drive more people away from the outdoors,” he said in a press release.
Scott Baker, an angler, deer and small game hunter from Chelsea, said he thinks a license fee increase is necessary. The cost of almost everything has risen, he said, including for things the DNR has to pay for like fish food and wages.
Baker, who sits on the board of Michigan Sportsmen Against Hunger, a nonprofit that coordinates donations of game to local food banks, said he doesn’t mind hunters and fishers shouldering much of the cost of running Michigan’s wildlife programs because he said they have a personal interest in wildlife management.
While he supports an increase in license fees, Baker described them as a “Band-Aid” fix.
“I think a long-term, sustainable solution is what we need,” he said. “We probably need something immediate to plug some of those holes, then (we need) long-term solutions.”
Kintigh said the wildlife division’s discretionary budget has absorbed most of the reductions, which has led to cuts in habitat management, species monitoring and research and building maintenance.
The wildlife division’s full-time staff is down by 20% compared to 2005 levels, according to the DNR’s presentation.
The division also has put off upgrading equipment and aging office buildings, storage facilities and wetland infrastructure such as dams and dykes. The costs of those upgrades are now collectively up to $90 million, with the largest share – $40-60 million – needed for fixing up wetland infrastructure.
To manage the shortfall, the DNR wildlife division has held open vacant positions, cut its temporary staff hours, reduced its fleet of vehicles, restricted overtime and out-of-state travel and downsized some research and private lands programs. The electrical systems in some DNR buildings is so bad that electricians refuse to touch them, Kintigh said.
“Without changes, we face a future of continued erosion of our already limited capacity to deliver for Michiganders and to uphold our responsibility to Michigan’s wildlife conservation legacy,” he said.
