ORIGINAL: DougE
BT,that same tornado ravaged several thousand acres not far from my home.You are 100% correct.That tornado turned that whole areas into one giant clearcut and the herd exploded.Today,that all pole timber with a very low carrying capacity and a very low deer density.Prood positive of why you can't timber too much at one time.
The proof positive of your post is that the deer did not prevent the area from regenerating ,even though it had been over browsed for over 50 years. And the area didn't regenerate because the deer couldn't get to the new growth , because if that were true the habitat would have controlled the herd as RSB claimed and the herd would not have" exploded".
So, what you have shown is that harvesting larger areas would allow adequate regeneration and much higher deer densities.