Perhaps this will help some people better understand the deer/habitat relationship.

Often people question why we don’t have more deer and blame the lack of deer on hunters harvesting too many deer. Though it is possible to over harvest deer in some small pockets of any area I believe the following pictures show the biggest reason we don’t have more deer in most areas. When you have winter habitat that isseverally affected by the deer, like this obviously is,harvesting fewer deer would do nothing more then create more winter mortality and food for the predators or scavengers.

These pictures were taken last week in one of the wintering grounds areas near Ridgway.

The first picture shows how the deer chewed the rhododendron down to what was under the frozen snow crust where they couldn’t dig down any further.

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s141/RBODENHORN/WinterDeerdamage001.jpg

This picture shows how the deer ate all of the rhododendron that wasn’t buried beneath the snow to as high as they could reach.

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s141/RBODENHORN/WinterDeerdamage005.jpg

A view of how the hungry deer ate all of the hemlock, down to the stem, that was above the crust line.

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s141/RBODENHORN/WinterDeerdamage008.jpg

Make no mistake about the fact that the deer in this area proved that their numbers are about to the maximum the winter could have supported. Even with the winter having opened when it did it will likely still result in reduced fawn survival rates once again this year due to many not reaching the correct birth weight due to the stress mom endured through the winter.

R.S. Bodenhorn