Originally Posted by
bluebird2
That simply is not true. while the PGC has claimed our forests have been severely over browsed since the late 1920's, the amount of forested acreage has increased instead of decreasing. If you don't believe what iI am saying ,just go to the DCNR website and you will see I am right.
QUOTE]As a result of increased hardwood regeneration, nutrition, and therefore the carrying capacity will increase.
The CC capacity of over browsed beech ,birch and striped maple can support 40 DPSM at the MSY CC of the habitat. But, WMU 2g is being managed at 8 DPSM. Does that make sense to you?[/quote]
It makes sense to me.Once the habitat gets degraded as much as it is in 2G,it takes far less deer to continue to impact the habitat.While deer can certainly survive in poor habitat,it makes no sense to increase the population if they're forced to eat indicator species like beech.That proves that other more valuable and more preferred species are getting wiped out.I don't understand why anyone would find that acceptable.
2g certainly averages out to overwinter less deer than most places.However,the deer are not evenly spread out.Huge areas have absolutely pizz poor habitat shouldn't have hardly any deer.Seek out and find the places where deer should actually be and you'll find deer densities far above 8 dpsm.