Here are just a few of the things I found in the link to the report you posted that clearly don’t support what you have been try to convince people of concerning the ability of the habitat to support more deer. And remember this is the report you selected to support your nonsense.

The relative deer density associated with a sustained yield of deer for harvest (RDD I/, where the subscript refers to McCullough's [1984] "I" carrying capacity, or maximum sustained yield of deer for harvest) is consistently higher than that associated with a sustained yield of timber (RDDT, where the subscript refers to sustained yield of timber).. The relative deer density associated with sustaining bio-logical diversity (RDDs, where the subscript refers to sustaining all resources) is yet lower. We offer these observations and this framework as management tools for integrating the important interactions among deer, plant communities, and other components of the ecosystem.

Researchers were unable to maintain target deer densities of 32 deer/km2 during the study (de-Calesta 1994); starvation mortality resulted in actual densities of 25 deer/km2, which we estimated as K for this artificial system.

In the 10-year study in northwestern Pennsylvania, Tilghman (1989) and deCalesta (1992) determined that species richness and abundance of shrubs and herbaceous vegetation declined between 4 and 8 deer/km2, (16<RDD<32, given K =25 deer/km2). This suggested an RDD 16 may be required to sustain this kind of vegetation.

This next part clearly indicates that the research based on this report indicated a need to use deer forage, or habitat, as one of the parameters that should be used in determining proper deer/habitat management objectives, just as the Game Commission is doing and you are opposed to.

However, there is more to this emerging paradigm for deer management that simply including multiple resources. The impact Of a given deer density on resources depends on the surrounding landscape.

These studies suggest the need to express impacts of deer on ecosystem components relative to forage availability and scaled to the landscape where they occur.

This next part indicates that deer densities of anything close to your quote of sustaining 40 deer per square mile in forested habitats are not only outlandish but totally unnatural and certainly the Authors of your posted report do not support your opinions on how many deer there should or could be living on our forested landscape.

Our analysis suggests that RDD, falls far below traditional management goals for deer density. Pre-European settlement deer densities may have approximated RDD, rather than RDD, or K. Deer density in northern hardwood forests prior to European settlement was estimated at 4 deer/km' for the eastern United States (Dahlberg and Guettinger 1956, McCabe and McCabe 1984, Alverson et al. 1988). This density was lower than I or K levels identified by McCullough (1979). It is not surprising that management for white-tailed deer based on I (for sustained harvest) or K (for parks and refuges without hunting; MacNab 1985) brought about negative effects on under story plants and associated wildlife communities that coevolved with deer at densities below I and K. This historical evidence, combined with the limited data available from Tilghman (1989), deCalesta(1994), Healy (1997), and others suggests that when the management objective is sustaining biodiversity, the target should be <16 RDD, or 1/3 of I.

The next part explains that this report is just a starting point for learning even more and that enough is not yet known about the real deer density/habitat relationships to draw any final conclusions. Those studies are presently underway within the present deer management plan that you are opposed to.

It also supports the concept of total resource management as being a benefit to the future of all of the resources, contrary to objectives of single species management that is not sustainable for a long term future.


So once again I guess your chosen report supports the Game Commission’s deer management objectives instead of your opinions.

Adoption of this conceptual framework will require research that provides managers with better tools than are currently available to assess the carrying capacity of specific landscapes. Better understanding of the effective scale at which deer interact with habitats is needed, such as research underway at Huntington Forest (Matthews 1996). We also need straight forward ways to estimate the K carrying capacity of these habitats. Similarly, more effective tools for the estimation of deer density itself are also required(Healy et al. 1997). In particular, research should be designed to test systems in which K changes (or is changed by human uses, such as agricultural) on short time scales (B. P. Shissler, Nat. Resour. Consultants,Inc., Fort Hill, Pa., pers. commun.).


Controversy surrounding the management of white-tailed deer populations in the United States has grown nearly as rapidly as deer populations them-selves. Management paradigms based on the jumble of ecological and political definitions of carrying capacity have failed to resolve these conflicts, while obscuring important relationships among ecosystem elements. Sustaining the forests on which deer depend requires a new conceptual framework for management. We propose managing deer for sustainability of ecosystems, using RDD, or relative deer density(deer density as a percent of K), as the framework.

This framework replaces the variety of old carrying capacity concepts: sustained yield of maximum numbers of deer for harvest and sustained yield of timber. All of these can be expressed in the common currency of RDD, which would help clarify apparent differences when data are collected on landscapes with differing carrying capacities. Instead of a management target based on an often value and conflict ridden assessment of deer impacts and deer population dynamics, the RDD framework focuses attention on the interactions of deer and other ecosystem elements. Stakeholders can focus on what information is needed to define relationships locally and plan management to sustain critical elements for wildlife habitat conservation, plant community conservation, or the conservation of deer habitat over the long term. However, these concepts offer no panacea for conflict-weary managers because they demonstrate clearly that RDDs is <1/3the RDD associated with maximum sustained yield of deer for hunter harvest.



Thanks for providing the link to this report that proves just how far out of touch you are with not only the realities of nature but also that prove you either don’t understand what is indicated in the reports you read or that you only cling to a few small snippets of out of context information obtained from them.

This report very clearly does not support your opinions and arguments.

R.S. Bodenhorn