LANSING, Mich. — With deer hunting season here, hunters are using private property with and, sometimes, without the property owner’s permission.

Firearms deer hunting season runs from Nov. 15-30 in Michigan; other hunting seasons have already started or concluded, such as bow, early antlerless deer, youth and senior hunting. Along with hunting season comes opportunities for hunters and farmers, as hunters search for private and farmers look for hunters to cut down on the number of nuisance animals on their properties.

“The deer cause additional concern for the farmer, whether the crop is corn or apples,” said Rebecca Park, legislative counsel for the Michigan Farm Bureau (MFB). “Also, in certain areas of the state, you have concerns about disease transmission from wild deer to livestock.”

She said farmers and hunters “want the same thing: They want a healthy deer population. Farmers don’t want to be dealing with nuisance species. There’s really a partnership there, but sometimes the hunter forgets that the farmer is the landowner.”

Section 324.73102 of the Michigan Compiled Laws deals with trespassing and recreational uses of land. It states a person may not enter onto private property for recreational purposes, such as hunting or trapping, without the owner’s permission, as long as the property is fenced in or “maintained in such a manner so as to exclude intruders.” They also can’t enter property if it’s properly posted warning people not to enter.

One exception to this is farmland or a stretch of woods connected to farmland. Farmland and adjoining wooded areas do not have to be posted or fenced in order to legally exclude intruders; however, the burden is on the hunter to know the area in which he or she is hunting. Even a large stretch of woods connected at some point with farmland could be private property, and a hunter on that land could be trespassing even though nothing is posted.

Park explained it’s assumed that anyone wanting to use land will understand farmland is private property and that a stretch of woods adjoining the property is most likely owned by the same landowner.

Exceptions to these trespassing rules include a hunter needing to get his hunting dog; he can go onto private property, unarmed, to retrieve the dog. A fisherman navigating a stream in waders or floating can go onto the stream’s banks, which might be on private property, to avoid hazards or obstructions on the stream.

Both the MFB and state officials want to encourage positive interactions between farmers and hunters that meet the needs of both. These include lease arrangements.

In order to make such transactions a little less anxious for farmers, the state legislature passed Part 733 of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act in 1994. Part 733 provides limited liability for landowners whether people entering the property have permission, and whether the landowner charges fees.

“It essentially says that a landowner is not liable for an injury to the person unless there’s gross negligence on the part of the landowner,” Park said.

In order to facilitate hunter-farmer lease arrangements, the MFB has provided a sample hunting lease agreement for farmers. It can be viewed online as a PDF file at www.michfb.com/ecology/hunting