Resources

Below is a collection of resources containing information about caring for deer and forests.

Ecosystem Restoration & Deer Management at Red Top Mountain State Park

White-tailed deer are an enjoyable sight of Red Top Mountain State Park. Visitors have traditionally valued the opportunity to view deer, other wildlife, wildflowers, and the natural beauty of the park. However, the park’s deer population has existed in unnaturally high numbers, resulting in over-browsing that is severely impacting plants needed by other wildlife. In fact, deer have damaged their environment so much that their own health is damaged. Additionally, these unnaturally high deer numbers impact the ability of the Parks & Historic Sites Division to fulfill its mission. As a result, DNR has partnered with the University of Georgia to study deer herd management at Red Top and to recommend a management approach that will ensure a health ecosystem and deer population. This is a publication of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

The Wildlife Society Publication List

This website contains a list of publications by The Wildlife Society that are available for purchase.

Publications Sponsored by the Wildlife Damage Management Working Group

This website contains links to publications sponsored by the Wildlife Damage Management Working Group.

Review of Available Management Techniques

When regulated hunting is not an option, nontraditional methods, such as the ones identified below, can be implemented to address overabundant deer populations. This author of this article is unknown.

Deer: Damage Prevention and Control Methods

Deer are probably the most widely distributed and best-recognized large mammals in North America. The white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) (Fig. 1) is found throughout much of North America. The mule deer (O. hemionus) is primarily a western species restricted to buttes, draws, and stream bottoms with sufficient forage. The black-tailed deer (O.h. columbianus) is a subspecies of the mule deer. Both white-tailed and mule deer are very important game animals. In 1974 about 2 million white-tailed deer were harvested by over 8 million hunters. The trend in both harvest and hunter numbers has been generally upward since then. The positive economic value of deer through license fees, meat, and hunter expenditures for equipment, food, and transportation can be measured in hundreds of millions of dollars. Hesselton and Hesselton (1982) estimated the value of each deer harvested in the United States to be $1,250. With the additional aesthetic value of deer to landowners and vacationers, importance of deer as a wildlife resource cannot be dispute. This article was written by Scott R. Craven and Scott E. Hygnstrom.

Wanted: More Hunters

"The U.S. whitetail population is out of control. Not only are deer starving by the thousands, they're laying waste to entire ecosystems. There is only one solution." No species in North America has been more grotesquely mismanaged than deer. The mismanagement--ongoing--began with a crusade by the early settlers against cougars and wolves, the main predators of deer. This behavior flabbergasted the Indians. After much arguing and theorizing, they decided it was a symptom of insanity. This article was written by Ted William for Audubon.

Deer Population Management through Hunting and Alternative Means of Control

On October 27, 1997, the Center for Agricultural and Natural Resource Policy sponsored a conference, open to the public, to address a growing wildlife problem in Maryland and much of the country: too many white-tailed deer. Of course, whether or not there are indeed "too many" deer is just one subject fueling the sometimes contentious debate surrounding this adaptable creature. The purpose of the Center's conference was to bring together what is known about both the damage and benefits attributable to deer in Maryland, to assess the consequences of current trends in the deer population for agricultural damage, public health and safety, and the ecosystem, and to evaluate the pros and cons of policy alternatives available, drawing on the experience of communities already implementing deer management policies. Here we make available the proceedings of the conference, in the hope they'll be of assistance to those engaged in the management of this living natural resource. We welcome your comments. Please direct them to Lkoch@arec.umd.edu. If you would like to order a copy of the entire proceedings, please inquire at the same e-mail address.

Deer Eliminate Bears

Here's a startling update to the deer overpopulation thread. A paper in the latest issue of Conservation Biology described how Black Bears (Ursus americanus) have been extirpated from an island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence by the introduction of White-tailed Deer. This article was written by Susan Stout for Bootstrap Analysis: Chronicles and Musings of an Urban Field Ecologist.

Sunday Times: Problematic Charisma

There's a good piece in the current (Jul-Aug) issue of Audubon Magazine on the chronic White-tailed Deer overpopulation problem. Ted Williams points out what is obvious to most wildlife ecologists: that deer populations are allowed to grow until they destroy the ecosystems they depend on. Research is overwhelming and unequivocal: when deer are present in high densities, they alter the landscape so severely that plants disappear, some never to recover, setting off a chain reaction that echoes through the system, resulting in drastic reductions in biodiversity. For example, the article states: In Warren, Pennsylvania, a 10-year study by the U.S. Forest Service determined that at more than 20 deer per square mile, there is complete loss of cerulean warblers (on the Audubon WatchList as a species of global concern), yellow-billed cuckoos, indigo buntings, eastern wood pewees, and least flycatchers. ... In heavily settled parts of Pennsylvania, where hunting pressure is light or nonexistent, it's not unusual to have more than 75 deer per square mile. The only realistic way to control deer populations is with guns. Like it or not. This article was written by Susan Stout for Bootstrap Analysis: Chronicles and Musings of an Urban Field Ecologist.

Sunday Times: Impact of Deer on Forest Invertebrates

The December 2005 issue of the journal Conservation Biology has a paper on a topic near and dear to my heart (heh-heh): deer overpopulation. In case you missed previous installments, there was the overview of the ecological problems of too many deer, their impact on songbird populations, and how too many introduced deer actually extirpated black bears on an Canadian island. The current paper also examined islands in Canada, this time the Queen Charlotte Islands, BC. The authors looked at islands on which Sitka Black-tailed Deer (Odocoileus hemionus sikensis) had been introduced for less than 20 years, more than 50 years, as well as deer-free islands. They sampled invertebrates at the forest edge and in the interior, in the litter and below the browse line. This article was written by Susan Stout for Bootstrap Analysis: Chronicle and Musings of an Urban Field Ecologists.

Public Menace

There's only one way to protect yourself, your family, and native ecosystems from the most dangerous and destructive wild animal in North America, an animal responsible for maiming and killing hundreds of humans each year, an animal that wipes out whole forests along with most of their fauna. You have to kill it with guns. This article was written by Ted Williams for Audubon.

Pennsylvania Whitetails: Creating New Traditions

This video aims to inform, educate, and bring about the necessary changes to improve the deer management program in Pennsylvania. Discusses the impacts of white-tailed deer on Pennsylvania forests.

Wild Pennsylvania: Deer Management

Discusses issues of maintaining the delicate balance betwen deer and their habitat in Pennsylvania.

Deer in Allegheny Plateau Forests: Learning the Lessons of Scale

Scientists began reporting that deer were reducing the abundance and diversity of plant species in Allegheny Plateau forests in the 1930s and 1940s. By the 1960s, nearly 50% of the stand-level regeneration harvests attempted by forest managers resulted in failures-that is, forests were replaced by fields of herbaceous plants. Studies confirmed the role of deer in regeneration failures and assessed the responses of managed forests to different levels of deer density. These studies suggested that the impact of deer on forest ecosystems is a joint function of deer density and the amount of forage available on a landscape. Issues of scale have posed challenges in this research. Deer impact on forest ecosystems is controlled largely at the small landscape scale. As foresters, we have viewed and studied these impacts at the stand scale. This mismatch has led to occasional suprises, and we are now working on a study to determine the most effective scale for measuring and managing deer impact. This article was written by S.L. Stout and R. Lawerence and was included in the 1995 Society of American Foresters Convention Proceedings. The conference was held October 28-November 1, 1995 in Portland, Maine.

Can Silviculture Change Deer Impact?

A case study conducted on the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania supported the hypothesis that silviculture can be used to increase forage production within a landscape of forest strands to mitigate the impact of deer on forest regeneration. The case study took place in a management area completely lacking advance regeneration. Beginning in 1988, silviculture to produce high forage (13% clear cutting, 33% thinning) was applied to this 1,100- acre compartment. Successful regeneration developed on all of the clear cuts, where regeneration stocking averaged 90% (+ 7.0%, N=5). Advance regeneration in partial cuts increased (p< 0.000, paired t-test) over time, from 17.5% (+17.8%, n=14) to 64.4% (+30.5%). This preliminary assessment suggests that increasing forage available to deer by using established silvicultural practices can reduce the effect of deer browsing on forest regeneration. This article was written by S.L. Stout, D.S. deCalesta, and L. DeMarco for the 1995 Society of American Foresters Convention Proceedings. The conferece was held October 18-November 1, 1995 in Portland, Maine.

Facilitation of Plant-Plant Interference by Herbivory in the Allegheny Hardwood Forest, Pennsylvania, USA: A Vegetation Management Problem

Advance seedlings are the primary source of regeneration in Prunus-Acer Allegheny hardwood stands in Pennsylvania, USA. Most stands lack adequate numbers of advance seedlings. Research conducted in the 1960s and 1970s showed that this was due to herbivory by whitetailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus virginianus (Boddart)) and plant-plant interference from ferns, gasses and sedges, and shade-tolerant hardwoods. Effects of deer density and forest cutting on vegetation development were evaluated on four 65-ha sites for 10 years in a large enclosure where deer were maintained at 0, 4, 8, 15, and 25 animals/km². At each site 10% of the-area was clearcut, 30% was thinned, and 60% remained uncut. Deer density affected advance regeneration abundance, height, and species compositionthrough direct removal of seedlings and facilitation of plant-piant interference between the ferns, grasses and sedges, shade-tolerant hardwoods and seedlings of commercially desirable Allegheny hardwood species. Vegetation observed in uncut, thinned, and clearcut stands is the result of an interaction between herbivory and plant species response to light. This article was written by Stephen B. Horsley in Popular Summaries from Second International Conference on Forest Vegetation Management. The conference has held March 21-24, 1995 in Rotoru, New Zealand.

Canary in the Coal Mine - A Short History of Northern Pennsylvania Forests and Thier Deer Herd

The results that we discuss in the text of this issue are important to most northeastern states. But why focus on northwestern Pennsylvania forests, you ask? What is happening there that is important to the rest of the Northeast? In the following short history of the forests of northwestern Pennsylvania, we will discuss what very high deer populations can do to a forest ecosystem. The unique ecological and human history of the Allegheny Plateau in northwestern Pennsylvania have created a situation that could be considered an indicator of the possible future for the rest of the Northeast, if deer populations are not controlled — a kind of"canary in the coal mine." (See Jim Redding's paper, "History of Deer Population Trends and Forest Cutting on the Allegheny National Forest" for a more complete history.) This article was included in the Forest Science Review, Winter 2004.

The Forest Nobody Knows

The non-urban residents of the Northeast, who live in or close to the forests and woodlands, and the urban residents who live within several hours' drive of the mountains and spend recreation time there would be surprised by Dr. Stout's words. We think we know what a forest should look like. But according to her, very few people have ever seen examples of what our forests really could look like. We like to use terms such as "old-growth," "virgin," or"primeval" forest to describe our wilder forests, but most of us truly do not know what such forests were. Most of the forests we see now are not old-growth (that is, never cut). The few scattered remnants of old-growth forest remaining have all been touched by chestnut blight, Dutch elm disease, butternut canker, and the gypsy moth. The northeastern forests reported by the early European colonists were cleared for agriculture long ago and have grown back at least once and maybe again after timber harvest. This article was included in the Forest Science Review, Winter 2004

The Need and Difficulty of Bringing the Pennsylvania Deer Herd Under Control

The Pennsylvania white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus.) herd has increased dramatically in the last several decades, despite greatly increased harvests. The high statewide deer density (11+ deer/km2) causes serious losses to agricultural crop production, forest regeneration, and diversity of forest flora and fauna. High deer numbers are associated with an excessive number of vehicle-deer accidents, and is implicated in the rapid increase in the incidence of Lyme disease in humans. Current efforts to reduce deer densities locally and statewide (extended antlerless harvest seasons and special farm hunts) are not solving the damage problem. Other solutions should be considered, such as increasing the bag limit of antlerless deer, increasing hunter willingness to harvest more deer through hunter education programs, resolving land access problems, and developing more appropriate deer management units. Deer managers must be aware of the limitations of conventional harvest strategy to resolve deer damage problems, and of the need for improvisation to meet management needs. This article was written by Gary W. Witmer and David deCalesta for the 5th Eastern Wildlife Damage Control Conference held in Ithaca, NY on October 6-9, 1991.

History of Deer Population Trends and Forest Cutting on the Allegheny National Forest

The forests of the Allegheny Plateau section of northwestern Pennsylvania have been severely impacted for more than 70 years by selective browsing by white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Historical and ecological interactions of deer and the forest ecosystem in this region from pre-settlement times to the present are presented based on data from the Allegheny National Forest area. The data suggest that deer impacts on forested ecosystems can be controlled through a combination of increased, sustained deer harvests and increased forage production through timber harvesting. This article was written by Jim Redding for the 10th Central Hardwood Forest Conference held in Morgantown, West Virginia on March 5-8, 1995.

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