ORIGINAL: bowtruck
ok rsb just have one question on my land on most days and i am talking 1300 to 1500 you can see about 30 deer
out feeding in the daylight. Yet i have never run across a deer that has starved to death. I nor anyone hunting one hunting on me has killed a thin or almost starved deer. How can 1 property in 3c hold that many deer for atleast 30 years withoutthem self destructing. Yet other areas cant hold 15
You obviously have good land that you both wisely and intensely manage if you have deer numbers that high.
I think if a person has fair to high quality land, with both good forest and other mixed habitat management, they can create and maintain the habitat that would easily support 30-60 per square mile.
Most areas of northern tier forest don’t have the soil types, the habitat abilities or long range habitat plans to manage intensely at those levels though. To manage at those high deer density levels would probably mean no mature or marketable forests ever again in our future though. For most people that simply isn’t a realistic option and I tend to agree with them that we should still plan for a sustainable forest as well as sustainable deer numbers.
R.S. Bodenhorn