ORIGINAL: bluebird2
The most recent survey results showed that 23.9% of the state’s WMUs have such poor forest habitat regeneration they will not support more deer for more then short term periods of ideal mast and winter conditions.
That is absolutely not what the survey results show, in fact they have very little relationship to how many deer the habitat can support. The forest survey results simply show what effect the existing deer density has on the regeneration of the existing forest canopy. It has no correlation to the true MSY carrying capacity of all the habitat that the deer utilize.
Amazing! It is simply amazing that people wouldn’t understand that the forest health really is very much about how many deer can live there.
No wonder some of you come on these boards demanding more deer. You simply can’t connect enough of the dots to figure out that habitat and deer numbers aren’t two total separate issues. They are in fact totally connected.
Those forest regeneration surveys measure the amount of regeneration there is on the forest floor. That regeneration is the deer food. If the regeneration isn’t there then there is no deer food establishing to feed the deer when and where there aren’t farm crops for them to eat. If there is no food there will not be any deer either so the forest regeneration most certainly tells the story about how many deer can live there.
Gee wiz I was kidding earlier when I made a comment about how some of you perhaps thought the deer could survive by eating rocks, but maybe you do think they can survive on rocks of you don’t see the correlation between the forest health surveys and past, present and future deer numbers.
It is just unbelievable how far from logical thinking and reality some of you people really are.
R.S.Bodenhorn