Wall Street Journal Article

[fabsroman]

Landscape Architects:
Deer Are Designing
Future Look of Forests

Abundant Whitetails Munch
Through the Underbrush;
'Like the Serengeti Plain'

By JAMES P. STERBA
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 1, 2004; Page A1

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. Result: no young oaks. Deer also love hickory and white ash, and eschew black birch, American beech and black locust. If they get hungry enough, they'll eat almost anything, and their victims aren't just trees.

The ground-level vegetation of the forest "has been severely degraded by over-browsing in many regions, eradicating critical habitat for many plants and birds," Mr. Pinchot says.

Gary Alt, Pennsylvania's chief deer biologist, says that allowing deer to multiply beyond the point where forests can replenish themselves, "has been the biggest mistake in the history of wildlife management." He calls it "malpractice."

Ironically, it was Mr. Pinchot's grandfather, Gifford Pinchot, who helped bring back whitetail deer a century ago. As the first director of the U.S. Forest Service, he helped pioneer a conservation movement to save forests and restore species of birds and animals all but wiped out by commercial hunters. When he took over the job in 1898, the whitetail population was no more than 500,000 nationwide.

Pennsylvania had fewer than 600 deer. Restocking began in 1906 with deer brought in by rail from Wisconsin, Michigan and West Virginia. With hunting restrictions, the herd grew back quickly. By 1917, Pennsylvania was the too-many-deer poster boy. Hunters loved it. Foresters hated it. Today, Pennsylvania has an estimated 1.6 million whitetails.

"If Gifford Pinchot could see what deer have done to our forests, he'd roll over in his grave," says Bryon P. Shissler, a wildlife biologist in Pennsylvania who consults on deer issues.

Nationally, whitetail population estimates range from 20 million to 33 million -- more than when Columbus arrived five centuries ago, wildlife historians believe. That's way too many deer to allow forests to regain their health and diversity, says Peter Pinchot.

"You walk through the woods of central Wisconsin, where I live, look at the understory and there's nothing there," says Robert Wegner, a historian who has written a dozen books on deer and deer-hunting.

Not only is the deer population out of control, the management model of control "is broken," he says. "Deer density is increasing. Hunter density is decreasing. Hunters are aging -- we're losing 75,000 a year. Mentors [to recruit young hunters] are going. We're pretty much headed for a train wreck."

Animal-rights groups such as the Washington, D.C.-based Fund for Animals applaud hunting's decline. That group wants hunting outlawed, and advocates non-lethal methods, such as birth control, to decrease deer overpopulations. But birth control, so far, doesn't really work, say most wildlife managers.

A general rule of thumb among deer biologists is that hunters need to kill 35% to 45% of the females annually to stabilize the population. But in most places, they aren't killing even half that percentage, according to state tallies.

Who's to blame for the whitetail population boom? Hunters, mainly. But, increasingly, non-hunters and anti-hunters are sharing the blame.

For decades, says Mr. Alt, the Pennsylvania biologist, vocal hunters have pressured state wildlife managers to maximize deer populations. Many still do. State wildlife agencies, which collect income from the sale of hunting licenses, obliged by restricting hunting-season lengths and the number of deer a hunter could kill.

By the 1930s, most states had adopted rules banning the killing of does. Bucks are serial breeders, so more females mean more fawns and a bigger herd. These so-called buck laws became a part of the deer-hunter creed.

Now states are pushing doe killing to create smaller, healthier herds, but many older hunters are loath to kill females. When Pennsylvania put more than a million doe-killing permits up for sale this year, one group of hunters, the Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania, launched a "Stop the Slaughter" boycott. Doe killing, they argue, is causing deer shortages -- a notion the state disputes.

In recent years, states have lengthened hunting seasons, increased the number of deer each hunter can kill and made it easier to get "nuisance" permits, which allow farmers to kill deer causing damage anytime. Southern South Carolina's lengthened season, for example, opens on Aug. 15 and closes Jan. 1. Hunters can kill as many bucks as they want, and doe permits are easy to get. Still, by most accounts, the state's whitetail population is growing.

Several states make hunters "earn a buck" -- meaning they have to kill a doe before they are able to kill a buck. And they can essentially buy as many deer-killing permits as they want. But most hunters hunt for meat, says Mr. Wegner, and once the freezer's full, their incentive wanes. Selling wild game is illegal. Programs in which hunters donate deer to food pantries for the needy have expanded, but not enough, he says.

Many of those who live in the forested sprawl tend to be relative newcomers to the countryside, second or third-generation suburbanites who now own hobby farms, weekend homes, or houses in developments in once-rural areas. Some believe hunting is unsafe or inhumane, and post "No Hunting" signs on their property or push local governments to adopt anti-hunting regulations. This turns large patches of the landscape into deer sanctuaries. Deer love exurbs, where forest meets garden, with no predators and delicious ornamental shrubbery.

"They know where the safety zone is," says Mr. Pinchot. Some studies show that in deep forest, coyotes and bears kill half the fawns, he says. But man has long been the deer's chief predator. With exurban sprawl, a big threat now is likely to be the family SUV.

Depending on the landscape, deer densities of 10 to 15 per square mile can harm wildflowers and nesting birds, according to Audubon Pennsylvania, a conservation group. Tree regeneration may be possible at densities of 18 to 20 per square mile, it says. But in many parts of Pennsylvania, and across the nation, whitetail densities can exceed 70 per square mile.

Concerned about bird species being threatened because deer are eating their habitat, an Audubon center in Greenwich, Conn., invited in bow hunters last year. Worried about its forest damage, Illinois has opened 10 of its 319 nature preserves to deer hunting.

For 50 years, until 1991, the forest around Quabbin Reservoir in western Massachusetts was a 58,000-acre sanctuary: no hunting. Deer populations grew to 70 per square mile. Nothing much grew below the trees.

"It looked like the Serengeti Plain, with herds of deer running around like antelopes," says David Kittredge, a forester at the University of Massachusetts. The forest ecology around the reservoir was so degraded that the drinking water of 2.5 million residents was deemed to be at risk.

Hunters killed 575 deer around the reservoir in the initial 1991 hunt, and annual hunts since have brought the deer herd down to 10 to 12 per square mile. The forest understory made a comeback. Deer still eat some seedlings but not enough to thwart regeneration. Quabbin became a deer-management model adopted by many nature preserves.

Michael S. Scheibel, natural-resources manager at the 2,039-acre Mashomack Preserve, on Shelter Island in New York, is trying to protect one of the last oak-hickory and oak-beech forests on the Atlantic coast from deer. The preserve has been owned by the Nature Conservancy since 1980. Each January, hunters kill 100 to 150 whitetails. But after five years, he's seeing "very little, if any, forest regeneration."

[fabsroman]

One problem is that deer swim freely to Shelter Island from nearby Long Island, a giant suburb full of lush habitat, and anti-hunting zones. North Haven, an exclusive village on Long Island, declared a "deer emergency" in 1997, and since then residents have put up enough eight-foot-high wire-mesh fences to make some neighborhoods look like prison camps.

Mr. Scheibel, who manages the Mashomack Preserve, is thinking about other options: applying for nuisance permits to cull more deer, for starters. "I really feel that with traditional hunting we're not able to control the herd," he says.

Increasingly, professional hunting teams are hired to kill deer at taxpayer expense. This usually happens after battles between local factions for and against killing deer. "Market hunting is still taboo, but we talk about it," says Mr. Shissler, the wildlife biologist and consultant. Market hunting -- allowing commercial deer-killing and the sale of wild venison -- has been outlawed since early in the last century.

[Classicvette63]

Deer densities in pa can exceed 70 per square mile my azz. Only in suburban areas where there is no forest to speak of and hunting almost non-existant. alt and his ilk can go pound sand as far as I'm concerned.

[LoneWolf]

Wow, really makes a lot of sense. It's a wonder we have any forests left after all these years, what with the deer and elk eating it all up
Another case of yuppies trying to decide how nature should act. IMHO

[8X56MS]

When I picked up my copy of the Journal in the lobby of my work place, and saw that article, I almost fainted. Deer? WSJ? wow!

I showed it around, but the response was overwhelmingly pro Bambi, anti hunter. If the varmints stripped the woods bare, my liberal co workers feel we should provide feed. Sigh

[DaMadman]

I thought that was a good article. It is a real shame that there are people that are so dead set against hunters putting meat in the freezer that they would rather see the deer mashed and rotting on the highway.

It is the classic example of the city people moving to the country and seeing a couple deer in the back yard.

They move from a row house to a house with a couple acres and a deer shows up in their back yard. The deer was always there the house is really what showed up. But anyway, the city slicker thinks it is just so pretty to have the deer grazing in the back yard so they buy some corn and put it out, then a couple deer show up and now there are bucks and does eating in the back yard. Fall rolls around and they mate. Aaahhhh how cute look at the two little baby deer, lets feed them too. then they grow up and have babies and soon enough 3, 5, 10 years down the road with nobody shooting them this person now has a herd of 20 deer in the back yard that will grow by double next year, he is now no longer putting out food for them because there are too many to feed but the guy is pissed because they are eating his tomato plants and apple trees, he even had one of those bucks tear up the side of his car with those antler he once thought were so majestic, but he still doesn't want anyone to hunt or kill them he want the gov't to give them birth control that doesn't really work.

It is happening all over the United States and soon enough the diseases are going to start running rampid and there will be a natural herd culling by disease and starvation and the hunters are going to be the one hurt the most because there are going to be less deer to hunt and the ones that are still there are going to be questionable health and nobody is going to trust the meat to eat it

[Nulle]

Same problem in South Dakota yet the folks who claim to be on our side (Game Fish and Parks) keep hiking the permit fees. Will be $40 for the tag and that does not include the general hunting license fee.
If they would drop the doe tags to $10 and run the season longer that might help.
Pretty soon it will be cheaper to buy an out of state tag than hunt in my own state.

[fabsroman]

As most of you know, I bought a towhouse 5 months ago and have been in the process of remodeling/upgrading everything in the house. Well, while in the Home Depot parking lot this past weekend, my dad and I ran into my cousin who lives less than 5 miles from me. He was buying stakes and green mesh to put around his pine trees and other shrubs that he thought deer were not supposed to eat. He mentioned all the trees and shrubs to me and I almost started to laugh. I had to tell him that deer had their preferences, but when they are starving they will pretty much eat anything. These deer here are starving because there are way too many of them in an urban setting. My cousin has woods behind his house, but to go bow hunting back there you need to be the President of the United States. Even then, you still need a bunch of political clout from other foreign nations to sign all the permits. It is utterly insane.

A couple of years ago, I heard a story from a hunter. Seems that when he opened up the deer's stomach, all he found were pine tree needles. That deer must have been really hungry. What is the difference if they starve to death or end up getting a swift quick clean kill? Probably the amount of pain they have to go through before they pass away.

[DaMadman]

Fabs I have seen that exact same thing in a deers gut on during a really cold snowy winter. the deers gut was packed full of pine needles.

I know the two goats that my wife has both love juniper and any sort of evergreen neeedles, they eat them like they are candy. But I am sure that deer would much rather eat something else if they had the selection of food they should have.

Deer are going to become the next back yard pest in a lot of places that are building and growing.

When I lived in a townhouse the big pests were squirrels, racoons and opposums. The next thing to be added to the list is the good ole whitetail deer.

Urban sprawl. The deer will either adapt and people will except having them as pests in their gardens and yards or they will be pushed out and exterminated in certain areas.

I know of at least half a dozen places in Maryland where there used to be acres upon acres of woods and farm that were loaded with deer that are now wall to wall $300,000 homes each on 1/4 - 1/2 acre, the deer got pushed out on to the highways and most of them killed. The rest moved into the tiny patches of woods between the houses and the highways. Being couped up into those tiny patches will cause every doe to become pregnant then have two fawns a piece and before you know it you have 100 deer living (starving to death) in a 10 acre patch of woods between housing development and a highway. No way to cull the heard because you can't hunt them so they wonder onto the road and tear up car after car or go into peoples back yards and become nuisances.

It's just the way it is now. How long will it take? 100's, 1000's millions of years before ever square foot of useable space on earth will be inhabitated by suburban sprawl.

[fabsroman]

I seriously doubt that it will take another 1,000 years before the world is completely populated. Look at what the world looked like 2,000 years ago. There was barely a sole in South America and North America. Now, the continents have tons of people and Europe is really crowded. Think what another 1,000 years will bring unless there is one horrific disease or war.

[Virginiashadow]

Population overload is probably one of the most overlooked but biggest problems we face as a race.

vashadow

[fabsroman]

We are facing that problem as a species. Eventually, we will be going through the same thing deer are going through in my parts, starvation.