Lawsuit could complicate drone laws for hunters and anglers.

By BEN EILER
Capital News Service 

LANSING — The founder of a company that uses drones to recover deer carcasses that hunters can’t find says Michigan’s prohibition of the practice violates his First Amendment rights.

A lawsuit filed by Mike Yoder questions one of the core principles of hunting and fishing in the United States, some experts say.

Yoder of Dundee, Ohio, founded Drone Deer Recovery and caught the attention of natural resource officials around Michigan.

The case begs the question: How should drones be used in Michigan?

The question “definitely isn’t going away,” Yoder said. “They’re just going to have to figure out how to deal with it.”

Yoder dreamed up the company when talking to a friend about their shared passion for hunting. 

The company finds and recovers deer that hunters shoot but cannot find. 

After a deer is shot and presumed dead, Yoder heads to the general area where the hunter thinks the animal might be. He then flies an infrared camera over the area looking for heat signatures. Once one is found, he switches to a camera with a zoom lens to see if it is the hunter’s deer or simply a bedding deer.

Yoder has already garnered a substantial online following and a nationwide market of interested hunters, he said. In the 2022 hunting season, Yoder recovered more than 100 carcasses around the country.

However, the company has run into roadblocks in many states, including Michigan, which have strict no-drone hunting policies. 

Every other Great Lakes state, according to information produced by each state, prohibits using drones to actively kill wildlife. But each state has different regulations on carcass recovery, with rules that are unclear, confusing or determined on a case-to-case basis.

Yoder’s suit argues that due to his First Amendment right to free speech, he should be allowed to share the location of downed deer carcasses with his clients. The case is in pre-trial discovery with no trial date set.

State officials counter that it isn’t an issue of free speech, but rather one of fair chase.

One of the most common concerns is that drones’ “continued and expanded use violates the fair chase doctrine,” said Tom Baird, who chairs the Natural Resources Commission, which sets hunting and fishing regulations.

The Fair Chase Doctrine is a hunter’s honor code written by the Boone and Crockett Club, a wildlife conservation organization founded by Theodore Roosevelt. The club defines fair chase as “the ethical, sportsmanlike and lawful pursuit and taking of any free-ranging wild game animal in a manner that does not give the hunter an improper or unfair advantage over the game animals.”

Nationwide, many hunting and fishing regulations were established with the fair chase principle as a core value, Baird said.

Fair chase means that hunting and fishing do not have a known outcome, he said. 

New technologies such as drones can make hunting more efficient, and many people think the new technologies “are just unfair,” he said.

That sentiment is backed by the state Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act.

Drone Deer Recovery’s services violate Michigan law, said Dave Shaw, the chief of the Law Enforcement Division in the Department of Natural Resources. 

The law prohibits taking “game or fish using an unmanned vehicle or unmanned device that uses aerodynamic forces to achieve flight or using an unmanned vehicle or unmanned device that operates on the surface of water or underwater.”

The law was written broadly, using “take” as “a catch-all term to cover all aspects of the pursuit of wildlife, not just the shooting/killing of such,” Shaw said.

Drones have other implications for outdoor recreation beyond finding deer. In a 2021 study in the journal “Ambio,” international researchers found that internet searches of “drone fishing” have dramatically increased and seem likely to continue to do so, with the United States having the 5^th-highest number of searches.

Drone fishing, the study explained, is when drones “are used to either transport baited lines into otherwise inaccessible areas or to perform reconnaissance and identify optimal areas for fishing including, for example, fish aggregations or essential fish habitat.”

These tactics, the study said, may lead to overly effective fishing, which could put more strain on the world’s fisheries. 

In Michigan, a drone may not be directly connected to a bait, line or lure, said Randy Claramunt, the DNR’s chief of fisheries. But they may be used to find fish habitat or to spot fish from the air. 

That’s not a common practice yet, said Claramunt, who says he could see it becoming more popular.

While drones can present the risk of overfishing, Claramunt said that doesn’t concern him due to his agency’s firm control on fishing.

The concerns rest more with the ethical and social issues and discourage low-income residents from participating, Claramunt said. Drones could “create unfair opportunities for some anglers who can either afford them or know how to use them versus others who can’t.”

He said he worries about a perspective of “well, if I don’t have this technology, then why buy a fishing license, why take advantage of this incredible opportunity that we have in a state like Michigan for fishing?”

Nevertheless, Claramunt said he hopes drones can become “just another opportunity to get excited about the incredible fisheries in Michigan instead of an impediment to being involved in or enjoying this activity.”

Some anglers agree.

“I would love to try drone fishing when it’s legal,” said Laura Whitman, a 24-year-old angler from Holland, who has been fishing since she was 5. “It sounds exciting.”

Why can drones be used to find fish, but not recover downed deer?

Baird said that’s tough to answer. And with new technologies emerging, wildlife officials will continue to struggle with similar questions.

Clearer rules are needed, Baird said. “It’s inevitable that we’ll have to consider additional regulation at some juncture, we simply don’t have anything in the pipeline right now.”

Ben Eiler writes for Great Lakes Echo.