A few years ago, I was at my truck getting ready to go home after a morning hunt on one of our leases. I heard a vehicle slow down, and a fellow hunter who leased in the region stopped to talk to me. “We sure do have a lot of deer now, but for some reason it seems like the bucks have smaller antlers and body size,” he said. “That’s true,” I said. “The reason this is true is because we are losing so much of our natural browse the deer feed on to keep their bodies and racks in good shape. Everyone in the territory needs to shoot more does.” “Oh, no!” the man said. “There’s plenty of browse in the woods on our lease. Some of our hillsides are covered with little saplings that haven’t been browsed on at all, so I know there is plenty of food available in our area for the deer.”
The conversation continued for a half-hour or so, and no matter what I said or what I showed the fellow hunter, I could not convince him of the impending doom of the local deer herd. In fact, I pointed out a browse line to him in a nearby woods, but he said he couldn’t see it. I also showed him where deer browsed on eastern red cedar, a sure sign of a loss of quality browse. He didn’t buy this argument, either. Finally, I gave up and we went our separate ways. From what I could tell about this fellow hunter, he didn’t want to believe there was a problem. Like me, he had started hunting this region when it contained only a handful of deer and some dandy bucks. During the next few years, he had experienced the explosion of the whitetail herd; a fantastic time when quantities of deer were seen and there were still a few high-scoring bucks. Now the deer were declining, and he was wondering why.
His reasoning included fellow hunters shooting too many small bucks, spot-lighters killing the trophy bucks at night, and there being too many poor nutritional Conservation Reserve Program acres in that location. Actually, at the time we talked, hunters were being more selective and trying to tag an older age class of bucks. Poachers were still a factor, although not any more so than they had ever been, and the CRP acres were virtually the same. The simple fact was we had way too many whitetails on each square mile of land.
TREE TRAGEDIES, PAST AND PRESENT
During the early 1930s, one in ten trees in forests in southern Indiana, where I live, was an American chestnut. The figure was one in four in the Appalachian Mountains. Then the chestnut blight, a fungal disease, hit and eradicated an estimated three billion of these unique trees.
Deer favored the soft nuts of the chestnut. Today, only sprouts and a few small trees remain of this magnificent giant of the forest. In 1928, another fungal disease was accidentally imported into the United States. Dutch elm disease has spread throughout North America and has destroyed the majority of the majestic elms found in towns and the countryside.
Now we are fighting the emerald ash borer, which threatens each variety of our valuable ash forest. It is estimated 50 million ash trees are now dead or dying in the Midwest because of this infestation. Just recently, it has been discovered that thousand cankers disease is killing walnut trees across the Rocky Mountain region and is a danger to black walnut trees nationwide. The fate of black walnuts as a forest tree hangs in the balance. Sadly, this disease has now been indentified in Tennessee. The loss of these trees is a national tragedy, and one that we as hunters had nothing to do with. I’m sure if we could have helped prevent this great loss in our forests, we would have been glad to do so. Well, today we can do something about a great loss that is going on in our forests. We — you — can help save our forests from destruction, and I’ll explain how in the rest of this article.
HELP SAVE OUR FORESTS
The fellow hunter I mentioned at the start of this story was obviously not a naturalist. Most of us aren’t. Fortunately, when I was growing up, my mom and grandmother knew just about every tree, bush and flower in the woods, and they shared their knowledge with me. In addition, I greatly improved my tree identification skills since I have always loved to squirrel hunt. This is a sport where tree identification is important. And last, when I became a photographer 23 years ago, I had to identify everything I photographed in nature, so this helped me learn many species of plants and flowers. Obviously, what I’m writing won’t give you a complete education in identifying everything in nature. I also still have a lot to learn. What I hope to do is to inspire you to learn more — and to put it to use — to help save or restore the valuable natural habitat in your hunting region.
IDENTIFY WHAT YOU HAVE LEFT
If you can identify a browse line in your woods, you already have a serious deer problem. A browse line looks like a high-water mark in a bottom woods, only the browse line reveals how high deer have reached to consume their favorite browse foods. Typically the browse line height is about five feet. In Canada, where some bucks grow huge bodies, browse lines have been documented 7 feet high.
To determine whether the forest has a browse line, it is important to first identify what species of trees you have in your forests and what type of understory growth remains. Doing this assists quality deer management in two ways. First, if deer don’t overbrowse your hunting timber, it will let you recognize and catch a developing problem. Second, if you have an overbrowsed woods, it will let you know what types of species need to recover.
For example, this article includes one picture that looks like a thick, brushy woods. Closer examination, however, reveals the species shown to be spicebush, paw paw trees and white snakeroot, a flower. This is the type of thick browse my hunter friend was talking about. This picture was taken in a tract overpopulated with whitetails, and as you might have guessed, deer do not like to eat these items. The habitat looks like it would provide a tasty, nutritious meal, but in reality, it’s a starvation diet for deer.
Another item that will fool most hunters is to see clusters of short, green vegetation in the fields and timber in fall. Although it looks like great browse, it is actually garlic mustard, a plant whitetails will not eat. Tragically, garlic mustard is a rapidly spreading woodland weed that is displacing native woodland wildflowers. It dominates the forest floor and can displace most native herbaceous species within 10 years. This plant is a major threat to woodland herbaceous flora and the wildlife that depend on it. Interestingly, the whitetail deer facilitates the spread of garlic mustard by clearing out native competitors while spreading the seeds on its fur and exposing soil and seedbed by trampling.
Obviously, it’s important to be able to identify the trees, flowers and other vegetation in your area. A good way to get up to speed on this is to take your camera — a point-and-shoot will do — and photograph everything you see in your hunting area, preferably when they are easiest to identify. By taking these pictures, you can use field guide books such as those purchased from the Audubon Society to indentify each species. You can also use the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website, http://www.usda.gov/. They have a file of 40,000 forest related images. Be sure to frequently update all your information. Look for signs of preferred food being nipped down by deer, the understory opening up and flowers disappearing. Without doubt, keeping track of deer numbers on your hunting tract will alert you to coming management problems. A quicker tipoff to deer exceeding the carrying capacity of the land, though, is to become a master reader of nature’s sign.
IDENTIFY WHAT IS MISSING
Great statement, right? How do you identify what is missing? Talk to some of the old-timers in your region who know nature. Ask them what they used to see in the timber in your area. Twenty years ago, I marveled at the strikingly beautiful hillsides of white trillium flowers in our hunting area. Today they are gone, solely because of deer nipping the vegetation off year after year until they died.
In some areas I hunt, there is an absence of poison ivy because the deer ate it. The same goes for greenbriers. I used to dig a lot of ginseng and sell it, but now I rarely see it. It isn’t gone; it just gets browsed in spring, and by fall, when the digging season opens, there are few leaves left.
Do a little research on the variety of trees, bushes, forbs and flowers native to your region. This will fill in the blanks as to what type of deer foods might be absent from the timber. Interestingly, when deer overpopulation goes on for some time, the look of the woods might change entirely.
For example, in another photograph I have shown a hardwood forest timbered in 2006. You can quickly tell the whitetails have depleted the tract of their favorite foods. Many hunters believe logging results in a rapid growth of saplings that will provide cover and food for deer. This is true under ideal conditions. Moreover, in this logging situation every seedling appearing through the ground was quickly eaten by a deer. Whitetails can easily maneuver through tree tops to get at this succulent food source, leaving the woods with only a regrowth of undesirable trees. A heavy cutting of timber allows a tremendous amount of sunlight to reach the forest floor, and in this case, it resulted in a grassy woods. This happens more often than you would believe. In similar situations on north-facing hillsides, you will often find an excessive growth of ferns. Grasses and ferns can create heavy shade on the forest floor, which is not what the seedlings of many beneficial trees need to become established and thrive. Have you encountered the types of situations I have mentioned?
CAN THE FOREST RECOVER?
The best and cheapest cure for a depleted deer food source is to dramatically reduce the deer herd. This means you and your hunting crew are going to have to do a bunch of shooting, field-dressing and dragging. Ideally, it means your neighbors are going to do the same, for this is a critical part of any deer reduction program. Without a cooperative effort among local deer hunters, it is extremely difficult to contain an out-of-control whitetail herd. There are cases where a region contains too few deer, although I can’t think of one in my state. If you’re going to err, make your mistakes by killing too many does, not enough. After the damage is done, recovery takes years in a hardwood forest.
By the way, recovery time estimates vary. I think it would take at least 20 years. In a study in northern Wisconsin, where deer ate a lot of eastern hemlock, a large exclusion area was built. It took 12 years of protection from deer to establish hemlock seedlings. In another older study area it took 27 years for the hemlocks to recover to a natural state in size. After you have reduced the herd, you have several choices to help the recovery rate of the natural habitat. First, you can implement more or larger food plots to relieve the whitetail’s forage pressure on the forest. Second, if possible, cut out all of those undesirable small trees deer don’t eat, such as paw paw, spicebush and others. This allows the foods deer prefer to repopulate the forest, regaining the balance originally found in nature.
Also try hinge-cutting excess trees. This lets them stay alive, and the tops are down low, where deer can readily get to them. If you own property, you can plant apple, pear, persimmon and other trees beneficial to deer. Many of these trees are fast growing, providing food in just a few years.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Our ideal goal as quality deer managers is to keep whitetail numbers within the carrying capacity of the land. This figure varies greatly from region to region, depending on soil type, agriculture, rainfall amounts, quality of the soil, the quantity of rock present and more. For some regions the carrying capacity of the land might be 20 deer per square mile (640 acres). Another, more fertile area may have a carrying capacity of 40 deer per square mile.
This means if the carrying capacity where you hunt is 40 deer per square mile, you should have five deer on an 80 acre tract. For 20 deer, the figure, rounded up, decreases to three deer on 80 acres. This is the figure that just blows deer managers’ minds, because they can’t fathom hunting a location with so few deer.
What still isn’t understood in today’s times is how a small, well-balanced deer herd might actually result in more deer sightings than the number experienced with a larger herd. Here’s the reason why. In 1987, my wife, Carol, and I hunted a region of hilly public land that had a small, well-balanced whitetail herd. Actually, we were the only ones hunting there. We agree this was one of our finest hunting years, resulting in three bucks killed and a monster that escaped my arrow. Because there were few does, the bucks just went ballistic during the pre-rut, rut and post-rut. Deer movement, and thus the number of sightings, was incredible. Conversely, with a huge deer herd, a buck can just walk around the next tree and find a doe.
In closing, our life is just a passing journey on Earth. Watching, managing and hunting deer are all enjoyable aspects of this short journey. This being said, we need to remember we are stewards of this beautiful sphere. By becoming educated in reading natural sign, you can enjoy nature to its fullest while using your knowledge to keep the deer numbers to a desirable level. You’ll save nature’s balance in our forests, forbs, and flowers in the process. Your children and grandchildren can enjoy the thrill of seeing a hillside of showy white trilliums or be scared out of their wits by a flushing grouse.
And best, they should have healthy bucks sporting huge racks to hunt during their lifetimes.
OBTAINING A PREFERRED FOOD SOURCE GUIDE for deer that applies to all regions of the whitetail’s range is not possible because these sources vary from area to area. A preferred food in one state might not be the preferred food in another state. A lot depends on soil type and other available foods. For example, chestnut oak trees are called scrub oak in Indiana because they thrive on poor, well-drained soil. They produce a large acorn, and only once, during a hard winter, have I seen evidence of deer eating them. That said, 15 years ago while hunting at Calloway Gardens in Georgia, they sent me to a ridge where they said deer were sucking up volumes of acorns. To my surprise, they were chestnut oak acorns. Your state deer biologist should be able to provide you with the whitetail deer’s favorite foods in your state.
My good friend Charlie Alsheimer has studied deer in his natural containment pen for many years. “Any time a deer is on its feet, it’s looking for food,” he said. When whitetails bed, they get up several times per day, relieve themselves and browse around before lying back down. With too many deer, it doesn’t take long to decimate the preferred forage in a forest. This will happen even if you have lush food plots, because deer need a variety of foods in the wild. In effect, they selectively eat their own blend of special foods when they are available, which keeps them healthy and large-racked. To get an idea of how depleted your timbered areas are, build an exclusion cage in the woods. If you have too many deer, it will be shocking to see how thick the fenced-in area is, while the surrounding forest will have very little vegetation. “Milk sickness” is what killed Nancy Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s mother. They had no idea what caused this illness until the 20th century, when it was discovered that cows eating poisonous white snakeroot produced poisonous milk. It is important to know your trees, plants and flowers where you hunt.
WHAT DO DEER EAT?
Spring Summer Fall Winter
Browse 34% 58% 56% 63%
Grass 14% 7% 12% 13%
Forbs 52% 35% 32% 24%
