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Landscape Architects: Deer Are Designing Future Look of Forests
Wall Street Journal ^ | December 1, 2004 | JAMES P. STERBA

Posted on 12/01/2004 4:36:16 AM PST by Tom D.

Landscape Architects: Deer Are Designing Future Look of Forests

MILLERTON, N.Y. -- The deer rose out of a distant swamp before dawn to browse in a hay field on a recent day. Then, as the sun came up, they made their way into a hillside forest, looking for concealment.

But the forest offered few hiding places. It has lots of tall, mature conifers and hardwoods, some 100 years old. Under them, virtually nothing grows -- no seedlings, no saplings, no bushes, and only a few ferns. The floor of this forest, like others around the country, has been stripped clean by whitetail deer.

It's deer-hunting season across the land -- a time when Americans are reminded that bountiful whitetails have their costs. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety said earlier this month that animal-vehicle crashes, mostly involving deer, killed more than 200 people last year and caused an estimated $1 billion-plus in property damage. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says deer cause more than $400 million in yearly crop damage, not including home gardens and ornamental shrubbery.

But below the radar of most people, whitetails have been eating their way toward a more lasting legacy: They are wreaking ecological havoc in forests across the nation. They have become de facto forest managers, determining today what many forests will look like 100 years from now, say forest experts.

"Deer have stopped the regeneration of our forests in many areas," says Peter Pinchot, a Yale-educated director of the 1,400-acre Milford Experimental Forest on the Poconos Plateau in Pennsylvania. That means little trees aren't growing up to eventually replace big trees.

Example: oaks. Deer love acorns. Surviving acorns sprout seedlings. Deer love them, too. Surviving seedlings become saplings. Deer strip them of leaves and bark. They die.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: animalrights; environment; idiotsoccermoms; killbambi; shootem
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To: DugwayDuke
Take a drive past any Forest Preserve in the Chicago area and you will see the bottoms of tree branches clipped evenly at about six feet above the ground, And nothing, not even a small shrub, below the branches.

I stopped by a friend's small meat processing place Sunday to pick up some vacuum sealed Hot Sticks (Summer Sausage) for another friend's kid in Iraq. He told me that the number of deer he's processed and has hanging in the locker totals over a thousand so far this deer season in Southwestern Illinois. And this is farming country, 35 miles from the Mississippi and downtown St. Louis.

Thirty years ago in Illinois the 30,000 deer tags were handed out by lottery. Bucks only. Deer Hunting was allowed in a few particular counties, maybe 20 out of 102. If you saw anything of deer, it was their tracks in the fields. Now they've overrun all the woodlots, the count of dead deer along any interstate and US highways is astronomical and the population just keeps growing. They can't be killed fast enough to stabilize the herd.

21 posted on 12/01/2004 5:32:51 AM PST by woofer
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To: tcostell
in New Jersey there is one other thing you need....a lawyer.

So....what's the bag limit for lawyers in NJ?

In IA, its one, but there's no limit to possession.

22 posted on 12/01/2004 5:36:57 AM PST by woofer
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To: raybbr
I'm guessing that he is actually trying to use reason to change the minds of those opposed to hunting.

I'm sure you're correct. His writing style, however, borders on insulting. An article that has to explain that disrupted regeneration means 'baby trees aren't growing up to be big trees' belongs in the Weekly Reader, not The Wall Street Journal.

23 posted on 12/01/2004 5:37:41 AM PST by Lil'freeper (Error 404. The page you requested was not found.)
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To: woofer

The "bucks only" program is too stupid for words.


24 posted on 12/01/2004 5:41:29 AM PST by lodwick (The 2nd Amendment is Our Reset Button on Governments.)
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To: Tom D.
If I'd won my election here in PA, one of the first pieces of legislation I'd have drafted would be to end deer hunting season entirely.  Go out 12 months a year and drop as many as you possibly can.  Cull the herd so to say.  Try to erase any stigma about leaving them where they fall.
 
I remember in a Field Ecology class I took that it's estimated that deer are 14 times more plentiful than they were when the first colonists came ashore.
 
As people move into wooded areas, they increase "forest edge" (first 300 feet into the forest) which is ideal dear habitat.  If we keep creating an environment and don't introduce a predator, say wolves, or me with a rifle, of course we're going to have a population explosion and all sorts of unintended side effects.

Owl_Eagle

”Guns Before Butter.”


25 posted on 12/01/2004 5:43:22 AM PST by End Times Sentinel (Zell Miller- No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy.)
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To: woofer

If the population is not stabilized by hunting, nature will step in and thin it with disease and starvation. The enviros will still oppose hunting even when there are thousands of scrawny diseased deer running around spreading who knows what. They will probably want to bring in wolves as a more environmentally friendly method of controlling the herd.


26 posted on 12/01/2004 5:43:51 AM PST by yawningotter
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To: woofer
Actually there is no season on Lawyers in New Jersey forests, but it's always open season on hunters in New Jersey courts.

(I usually camoflage myself as an professor of Economics to try to blend into my environment.)

27 posted on 12/01/2004 5:43:58 AM PST by tcostell
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To: Tom D.
I say we "harvest" the deer and market the venison like beef. It'd prolly help lower the risk of imported MCD.

Instead, IMO, many states set tag limits too low for the available number of hunters and the probability of all those hunters tagging their limits are even lower. In a local hunt club, I don't know of many who've tagged their limit for two years consecutively, but some who could have killed more had they more available tags. BTST, there are other members who'd only killed one - maybe two, the whole season, but the regulations, AFAIK, don't allow hunters to "share" limits.

Someone with more knowledge might enlighten me on the subject....

28 posted on 12/01/2004 5:45:30 AM PST by azhenfud ("He who is always looking up seldom finds others' lost change...")
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To: yawningotter
"If the population is not stabilized by hunting, nature will step in and thin it with disease and starvation."

The problem with "starvation" is it'll not happen with one hundred sixty acres of beans and three hundred acres of corn every ten miles or so.

29 posted on 12/01/2004 5:49:15 AM PST by azhenfud ("He who is always looking up seldom finds others' lost change...")
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To: Tom D.
I live in Worton. Md. Counted(stopped at 40) deer within the confines of two yards on my block. The enviros down here are whacked out also. Can't grow poison ivy or anything . They eat it all. Waiting for them to discover garbage.
30 posted on 12/01/2004 5:56:41 AM PST by primatreat (Deer are more rat like every day)
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To: Huck

In Northern Virginia, Loudoun County, the deer are like rabbits! I feel guilty that I haven't gotten a deer license yet!


31 posted on 12/01/2004 5:58:39 AM PST by Redleg Duke (Pass Tort Reform Now! Make the bottom clean for the catfish!)
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To: Fresh Wind

I hate to tell you, but 12' ain't nearly high enough. In Wisconsin, the chain link fences around the apple orchards need to be about 16' to 20' high!


32 posted on 12/01/2004 5:59:52 AM PST by Redleg Duke (Pass Tort Reform Now! Make the bottom clean for the catfish!)
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To: HamiltonJay
"They are just giant RATS!"

:-) I think your statement is just a touch over the top here!

33 posted on 12/01/2004 6:02:43 AM PST by Redleg Duke (Pass Tort Reform Now! Make the bottom clean for the catfish!)
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To: Redleg Duke

I counted 24 in one herd just on one section of the ranch....one herd!


34 posted on 12/01/2004 6:05:15 AM PST by OregonRancher (illigitimus non carborundum)
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To: Redleg Duke

In Northern VA, in Prince William County, there are actually communities on the forest edge that have planted tons of OAK trees. When they mature and start dropping acorns, that'll have deer swarming the golf course.

Stupid.

Please do get your hunting license (or as sKerry would say "get you a huntin' license").


35 posted on 12/01/2004 6:07:32 AM PST by wouldntbprudent ("Tell the truth. The Pajama People are watching you.")
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To: Tom D.

http://www.wisinfo.com/dailytribune/wrdtlocal/282134233411844.shtml

...Based on land area, deer densities are highest in east-central and west-central Wisconsin and in several units in northwestern Wisconsin. By comparison, densities are lower in southeastern and southwestern Wisconsin and in several west-central management units.

The statewide population averaged about 25 deer per square mile in 2003...


http://www.wnrmag.com/stories/1996/aug96/herd.htm

...Some leafy plants are stressed when deer populations swell to more than 12-15 animals per square mile.

...When deer populations rise above 20-25 per square mile, these trees are heavily browsed and have a tough time surviving.

...Every year, more than 40,000 deer collide with cars on highways and back roads. These accidents injure people, kill deer and cause an estimated $90 million in damage claims. Some auto body shops report 25-50 percent of their income is generated by car-deer collisions. The accident rates are high in most urban and rural areas where deer numbers exceed 25 per square mile.


36 posted on 12/01/2004 6:10:36 AM PST by hlmencken3 ("...politics is a religion substitute for liberals and they can't stand the competition")
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To: Redleg Duke
Disagree. Deer are so overpopulated, and hunters are so much fewer each year, that regardless of their official biologic status, deer have the same effect as vermin. Just like coyotes, rats, locust, etc.

On the good news side, they are very tasty!

Bottom line: We need more hunters, longer seasons, and less restrictive regulations.

37 posted on 12/01/2004 6:14:21 AM PST by animoveritas (Dispersit superbos mente cordis sui)
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To: animoveritas
The biggest problem is that city folks come out and buy up a chunk of country, and immediately post it to hunters. Then, when the deer start to ravage their $10k landscaping, they demand that the state or county "do something about it", but when you suggest they allow limited hunting, they recoil with horror!

Ya can't have it both ways.

38 posted on 12/01/2004 6:17:55 AM PST by Redleg Duke (Pass Tort Reform Now! Make the bottom clean for the catfish!)
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To: woofer

Time to eliminate the hunting season on deer and allow hunters to shoot any deer any time they feel like it. Do thisd for a few years to bring the population back in balance. And the states should override the idiots on the local level who put roadblocks on hunting.


39 posted on 12/01/2004 6:19:10 AM PST by nuke rocketeer
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To: Redleg Duke

Hardly, they are vermin, giant rats, nothing more.


40 posted on 12/01/2004 6:22:51 AM PST by HamiltonJay ("You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.")
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