LANSING, Mich. – Michigan’s coyotes are back to year-round pressure from hunters and trappers after a major policy reversal by state game regulators.

The state Natural Resources Commission voted unanimously on Wednesday on a controversial measure to allow coyotes to be killed all year long, backtracking on a position the state had successfully defended in court. Hunting groups immediately praised the change.

“It empowers landowners, safeguards the wildlife, protects our agricultural community and upholds Michigan’s conservation legacy,” said Merle Jones of the Michigan Trappers and Predator Callers Association.

Previously, Michigan game regulators had established a “quiet period” when coyotes could not be killed from mid-April to mid-July. That’s when coyote pups are vulnerable and not yet weaned from their mother’s milk.

State officials had been motivated by concern that hunters would leave young coyotes orphaned, turning public perception against hunting more broadly. Hunting groups balked at that notion and sued the state to overturn the policy.

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Last June, an Ingham County judge ruled against the hunting groups; an appeal of the decision remains pending.

Since then, the NRC has faced months of calls from hunters to restore coyote hunting opportunities. That’s while animal rights activists urged commissioners to stay the course.

This week the commissioners responded to the pressure from hunters.

Regulators didn’t fully restore year-round hunting and trapping of coyotes, though.

Instead, the NRC expanded “out-of-season” killing of overabundant coyotes or those causing interspecies conflicts on public and private lands, according to the approved state wildlife order.

A coyote hunting and trapping season will run from Oct. 15 through March 1. Then what regulators call a “management season” will cover the remainder of the year, when coyotes could only be killed on private property.

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The new rules will take effect March 1 this year.

The coyote regulation changes also drew opponents to this week’s meeting in Lansing.

Mitchell Nelson of Humane World for Animals nonprofit criticized the language of the wildlife order. He specifically complained that interspecies conflict isn’t defined, nor is a standard for what qualifies as an overabundance of coyotes.

“We don’t even have a current population count of coyotes, so with no accurate additional count of coyotes, no metrics for determining relative coyote abundance and distribution in an area, and no reporting requirement for the killing of coyotes, the concept of addressing overabundance is rendered completely meaningless,” Nelson told the commissioners during public comments.

“The bottom line is that increasing the random and indiscriminate killing of coyotes will not achieve any management objective,” Nelson said.

Game regulators also heard from a state scientist during their meeting.

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Commissioner John Walters asked the furbearer specialist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources whether it’s believed the change to coyote regulations would have any negative effect on the species population.

“We do not expect this proposed change to have a population level impact on coyotes,” said Cody Norton, DNR wildlife biologist.

Research has shown that more than 70% of coyotes in an area must be killed to reduce the population. As prolific breeders, the animals can recover their population within a year if only 60% are removed.

Rebecca Humphries, NRC chairperson, said the change is meant to address nuisance animals without altering the regular hunting and trapping season.

“The whole concept is to try and keep the integrity of the hunting and trapping season when they’re used as a furbearer species for pelts, and then outside that give people essentially the ability to take the species whenever it’s causing problems for them,” Humphries told MLive.

SAINT PAUL, Minn. – Minnesota Wild President of Hockey Operations and General Manager Bill Guerin today announced the National Hockey League (NHL) club has recalled defenseman David Špaček (SPAH-chehk) from the Iowa Wild of the American Hockey League (AHL).

Špaček, 22 (2/18/23), owns 19 points (3-16=19), 61 shots and 10 penalty minutes (PIM) in 35 games with Iowa this season, leading the team in assists (T-12th among AHL defensemen) and ranking second in points and shots. The 6-foot, 190-pound native of Columbus, Ohio, recorded 31 points (4-27=31), 31 PIM and 117 shots in 72 games with Iowa during the 2024-25 season, leading the team with 18 power play assists, ranking second in assists, and pacing team defensemen in scoring. For his career, Špaček owns 62 points (10-52=62), 62 PIM and 251 shots in 168 games over three AHL seasons (2023-26).

Špaček will represent Czechia at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympic games and has previously represented Czechia at multiple international competitions, including the 2025 IIHF World Championship, where he recorded two assists in eight games, and the 2024 IIHF World Championship, where he posted five assists in 10 games to help Czechia secure gold. He also helped Czechia to a silver medal at the 2023 IIHF World Junior Tournament, recording eight points (3-5=8), 11 shots and a plus-7 rating in seven games.

Špaček was selected by Minnesota in the fifth round (No. 153 overall) of the 2022 NHL Draft and has yet to appear in an NHL game. He will wear sweater No. 82 with the Wild.

Minnesota will host the Winnipeg Jets tomorrow, Jan. 15, at 7 p.m. CT on FanDuel Sports Network and KFAN FM 100.3.

Minnesota Wild single-game tickets are on sale now at wild.com/tickets, ticketmaster.com and at the Grand Casino Arena Box Office. Flex, 11-Game, half and full season memberships are also available for purchase. Please visit tickets.wild.com or contact a Wild Ticket Sales Representative by calling or texting (651) 222-WILD (9453) for more information. Group reservations of eight or more tickets can contact [email protected] for more information. Single game suite rentals are also available, contact [email protected] for more information.

Follow @mnwildPR on X and visit www.wild.com/pressbox and for the latest news and information from the team including press releases, game notes, player interviews and daily statistics.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – Last year, 88.4 million lightning strikes occurred across the United States. Missouri ranked 10th in lightning flashes per square mile.

Lightning flashes increased 10 percent in 2025 compared to 2024.

With nearly 90 million flashes last year, that amounts to 3.7 flashes an hour and 62,000 flashes a minute.

43 percent of the strikes were cloud-to-ground flashes, meaning the majority, 57 percent, were cloud-to-cloud.

Oklahoma ranked No. 1 with 73 flashes of lightning per square mile, and Texas ranked No. 1 with 13.3 million flashes total in 2024.

Kansas came in fourth with more than 5 million strikes, and Missouri ranked 11th at 2.6 million.

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