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Too many Deer = Wisconsin Enviromental Disaster

Old 02-03-2005, 04:51 PM
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Default Too many Deer = Wisconsin Enviromental Disaster

Study finds North Woods losing native species 11:30 PM 6/09/04 Ron Seely Wisconsin State Journal

Biologists at UW-Madison have studied sites in a 1950s plant survey of Wisconsin's North Woods and found a changed world. (

Tramping the same parcels that famed UW-Madison botanist John T. Curtis explored 50 years ago, modern-day botany researchers have found that native species are disappearing at an alarming rate and invasive species are altering the landscape. (

The findings appear in the June issue of the journal Conservation Biology. The study was done by UW-Madison botanist Don Waller and botany students Tom Rooney and David Rogers. (

The work is scientifically important, according to Waller, because it is among the first studies in the world to thoroughly document one example of what many scientists believe is the sixth and latest mass extinction event in the history of the Earth. (

But for those who simply enjoy spending time in Wisconsin's green north country, the study is further proof that the landscape from which the state derives a big part of its identity is changing, perhaps forever. (

"Things are vanishing before our eyes," says Waller. "The natural world is getting less interesting." (

The study blames high deer populations, development and the dramatic spread of non-native species for the changes, although Waller said climate change, the very gradual warming of the north country, may also be a factor. Interestingly, sites surveyed on tribal reservations, where development is better controlled and deer herds are smaller due to year-round hunting, showed an actual increase in native species. (

By studying plant growth on the same 62 sites across northern Wisconsin that Curtis studied, the botanists were able to compare their survey data with the earlier information, kept safely all these years in gray file cabinets in Birge Hall. (

They discovered: On average, each site surveyed had lost nearly 20 percent of its native plants from 50 years ago. (

Species diversity declined at 45 of the 62 sites surveyed. (

Invasive species showed up on two-thirds of the sites resurveyed. Fifty years ago, they appeared only on one site. (

Areas faring the worst are those where hunting is restricted, such as Brunet Island State Park in northwest Wisconsin. A native plant called the rosy twisted stalk had declined by 80 percent there, largely because of heavy deer browsing. ( The study is already getting the attention of natural resources managers in Wisconsin and elsewhere, according to Darrell Zastrow, a forest ecologist with the Department of Natural Resources. Information on the impact of deer as well as the threat of invasive species will be especially useful for planning, he said. (

"I do think this is going to be a very significant paper that's referred to a lot," Zastrow said. (

Waller said no studies have looked at such an extensive number of sites to survey plant losses. Such studies are important, he added, if scientists are to understand what some believe is a slow, worldwide extinction of plants and animals, driven by human impacts, that would rate as the sixth-largest mass extinction in the history of the Earth. (

The more immediate impact, however, is simply the alteration of a much-beloved landscape. (

"People flock to northern Wisconsin because it is a beautiful environment," Waller said. "They come for the lakes and for the forests. But it's changing and they don't even know it. (

"People don't go to the North Woods to see garlic mustard." (
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Old 02-03-2005, 05:24 PM
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Default RE: Too many Deer = Environmental Disaster

Where I hunt in SD. Has great deer hunting. You want to see a hundred deer a day? Western SD has them. From the cropland through the Black Hills. It nice to have great hunting but I fear that over population will end up destroying a lot of the herd. I hope I am wrong and lack of food so far has not been a problem because the crops are a renewable resource. However destroying hay stacks when the snow gets deep is a problem and if populations continue to grow, it increases the chances of CWD and other deer deseases.
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Old 02-03-2005, 07:33 PM
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Default RE: Too many Deer = Environmental Disaster

Fauna versus flora (2-10-99)
Botanist says deer threaten wildlife

Like Aldo Leopold before him, UW-Madison botanist Don Waller is about to take an unpopular stand on Wisconsin's booming deer herd.

Next week, when Wisconsin's Conservation Congress holds a public hearing here to gather public input on how best to manage the estimated 1.4 million deer in the state, Waller is likely to find himself in the cross hairs of both hunters and animal rights activists. He plans to paint a vivid picture of the damage the large deer herd is doing to Wisconsin's biodiversity.

The list of casualties, says Waller, includes trees like eastern hemlock and white cedar, wildflowers such as orchids and lilies, and shrubs like Canada yew. Moreover, the combined effect of over-browsing by a deer herd with population densities now in the range of 20 to 30 animals per square mile has, in some areas, significantly reduced vegetation needed by many songbirds and butterflies.

The list of casualties, says Waller, includes trees like eastern hemlock and white cedar, wildflowers such as orchids and lilies, and shrubs like Canada yew. Moreover, the combined effect of over-browsing by a deer herd with population densities now in the range of 20 to 30 animals per square mile has, in some areas, significantly reduced vegetation needed by many songbirds and butterflies.

"We've created a landscape that fosters high deer density," said Waller noting that much of northern Wisconsin is now a blend of openings, conifer stands and young aspen stands, ideal deer habitat. "But there's a downside to this kind of landscape and wildlife management."

Fifty years ago, another UW-Madison professor, wildlife ecologist Aldo Leopold, faced a similar situation, and successfully persuaded the state to alter the way deer were harvested, specifically by opening the hunt to include young bucks and does. He was criticized for it until his death in 1949 (see sidebar).

In Waller's view, the issue remains essentially the same: The deer herd, he argues, is managed in one dimension, with little thought or policy directed to the idea that deer are one component of an interconnected system of plants and animals.

The problem, says Waller, is of such proportion that "catastrophic disintegration" looms for some of Wisconsin's distinct biotic communities.

"There is good evidence that native species, particularly orchids and lilies, are getting hammered by deer. They are high on the list of preferred deer foods."

Waller and his students, in fact, have collected much of the hard data to support such a conclusion. Under grants from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Waller has conducted studies over six years of the influence of deer on plant communities, principally in northern Wisconsin. The results portray a dire future for plants and trees that were once common elements of the Wisconsin landscape.

Eastern hemlock, for example, was at the time of European settlement a dominant or important component in roughly two-thirds of Wisconsin's northern forest area. It is now confined to a few remnant stands and, in those stands, is experiencing a widespread failure to regenerate. Seeds sprout, says Waller, but trees rarely survive beyond the seedling stage because they are a preferred menu item for deer, which today roam in densities two to four times as great as when Europeans first settled the area.

Thomas P. Rooney, a UW-Madison graduate student in botany, working in Pennsylvania's Heart's Content, one the last virgin forests in the eastern United States, has documented the devastation inflicted by deer that exist in densities even higher than those in Wisconsin. Cataloging plants in the two virgin stands browsed by deer, he found that in one stand nearly 60 percent of native species had disappeared. In the other, he could not find nearly 80 percent of the plant species found in a 1929 survey of the same tract.

The heart of the problem is single-minded management, Waller says. When it comes to deer, which have a powerful political constituency in the hunting public, management historically has been focused on keeping deer populations as high as possible without degrading the herd.

What's needed to ensure the overarching health and diversity of Wisconsin's biotic communities, argues Waller, is a more encompassing approach to management: "It is important to have a broader, ongoing monitoring of biotic impacts. That, heretofore, has not been an element of deer management."

Waller plans to suggest as much at the Madison hearing, one of a series of 29 being held throughout Wisconsin. That proposal, he says, will be controversial because it involves reducing deer population density in some deer management units through expanded hunting opportunities.

Reducing densities will be unpopular with some members of the hunting public and the method for achieving those densities, hunting, which Waller says is far and away the best management technique at the DNR's disposal, will not be favored by other groups such as animal rights activists.

"This is a radical notion to some people. But some managers, particularly foresters and wildlife biologists, are starting to listen to the message," Waller says.
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Old 02-06-2005, 07:38 PM
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Default RE: Too many Deer = Wisconsin Enviromental Disaster

Bibliographic References Relevant to the Issue of Deer Impact on Vegetation

1. Abrams, M.D. and G.J. Nowacki. 1992. Historical variation in fire, oak recruitment, and post-logging succession in central Pennsylvania. Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 119:19-28.

2. Allison, T.D. 1990. The influence of deer browsing on the reproductive biology of Canada yew (Taxus canadensis Marsh). I. Direct effect on pollen, ovule, and seed
production. Oecologia 83:523-529.

3. Allison, T.D. 1990. The influence of deer browsing on the reproductive biology of Canada yew (Taxus canadensis Marsh) II. Pollen limitation: an indirect effect. Oecologia
83:530-534.

4. Allison, T.D. 1992. The influence of deer browsing on the reproductive biology of Canada yew (Taxus canadensis Marsh) III. Sex expression. Oecologia 89:223-228.

5. Alverson, W.S., D.M. Waller and S.L. Solheim. 1988. Forests too deer: Edge effects in northern Wisconsin. Conserv. Biol. 2:348-358.

6. Anderson, R.C. 1994. Height of white-flowered trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) as an index of deer browsing intensity. Ecological Applications 4:104-109.

7. Anderson, R.C. and A.J. Katz. 1993. Recovery of browse-sensitive tree species following release from white-tail deer Odocoileus virginianus Zimmerman browsing pressure. Biol. Conserv. 63:203-208.

8. Anderson, R.C. and O.L. Loucks. 1979. White-tail deer (Odocoileus canadensis) and its influence on the structure and composition of Tsuga canadensis forests. J. of Applied Ecol. 16:855-861.

9. Anderson, Roger C. 1994. Height of white-flowered Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) as an index of deer browsing intensity. Ecol. Applic. 4(1): 104-109.

10. Atwood, Earl L. 1941. White-tail deer foods of the United States. J. Wildl. Manage. 5(3): 314-332.

11. Augustine, David J. and Lee E. Frelich. 1998. Effects of white-tailed deer on populations of an understory forb in fragmented deciduous forests. Conserv. Biol. 12(5): 995-1004.

12. Balgooyen, Christine P. and Donald M. Waller. 1995. The use of Clintonia borealis and other indicators to gauge impacts of white-tailed deer on plant communities in northern Wisconsin, USA. Nat. Areas J. 15: 308-318.

13. Bierzychudek, Paulette. 1982. Life histories and demography of shade-tolerant temperate forest herbs: a review. New Phytol. 90: 757-776.

14. Bowles, G.H. and J.M. Campbell. 1994. Relationship between population density of white-tailed deer and the density of understory trees in forests of Erie County, PA. J. PA Acad. Science 67:109-114.

15. Bratton, S.P. 1979. Impacts of white-tailed deer on the vegetation of Cades Cove, Great Smokey Mountains National Park. Proc. Annual Conf. Southeast. Assoc. Fish and Wildl. Agencies 33:305-312.

16. Bratton, S.P. and E.A. Kramer. 1990. Recovery of live oak sprouts after release from browsing on Cumberland Island National Seashore, Georgia. Unpublished report, National Park Service, Cooperative Park Studies Unit, Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA.

17. Brooks, R.T. and W.M. Healy. 1989. Response of small mammal communities to silvicultural treatments in eastern hardwood forests of West Virginia and Massachusetts. Pages 313-318 in: USDA Forest Service Management of Amphibians, Reptiles, and Small Mammals in North America. Gen. Tech. Rep. RM-166.

18. Campbell, John M. 1993. Effects of grazing by white-tailed deer on a population of Lithospermum caroliniense at Presque Isle. J. PA Acad. Sci. 67(3): 103-108.

19. Casey, D. and D. Hein. 1983. Effects of heavy browsing on a bird community in deciduous forest. J. Wildl. Manage. 47:829-836.

20. Clepper, Henry E. 1931. The deer problem in the forests of Pennsylvania. PA Dept. Forests and Waters, Bull. No. 50, Harrisburg.

21. Clutton-Brock, T.H. and S.D. Albon. 1991. Trial and error in the highlands. Nature 358:11-12.

22. Commissioners of Fairmount Park. 1914. Annual Report, Philadelphia, PA.

23. Crawford, Hewlette S. 1982. Seasonal food selection and digestibility by tame white-tailed deer in central Maine. J. Wildl. Manage. 46(4): 974-982.

24. deCalesta, D.S. 1992. Impact of deer density on species diversity of Allegheny hardwood stands. Northeast Forest Experiment Station, Warren, PA (unpublished).

25. deCalesta, David S. and Susan L. Stout. 1997. Relative deer density and sustainability: a conceptual framework for integrating deer management with ecosystem management. Wildlife Soc. Bull. 25(2):252-258.

26. Dessecker, R.D. and R.H. Yahner. 1987. Breeding bird communities associated with Pennsylvania hardwood clearcut stands. Proc. Pennsylvania Acad. Sci. 61:170-173.

27. Diamond, J. 1992. Must we shoot deer to save nature? Natural History 8:2-8.

28. Dzemyan, J.P. 1994. Where have all the flowers gone? Pennsylvania Game News 65(5):15-17.

29. Fairweather, S.E. and C.M. Cavanaugh. 1990. Identification, Restoration, and Maintenance of Historic Woodlots at Gettysburg National Military Park. Tech. Rep. NPS/MAR/NRTR-90/049.

30. Forbes, S.E., L.M. Lang, S.A. Liscinsky and H.A. Roberts. 1971. The white-tailed deer in Pennsylvania. Research Bull. No. 170, Pennsylvania Game Commission, Harrisburg, PA.

31. Frelich, L.E. and C.G. Lorimer. 1985. Current and predicted long-term effects of deer browsing in hemlock forests in Michigan, USA. Biol. Conserv. 34:99-120.

32. Fronz, L. 1930. Deer damage to forest trees in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania Game News 8(12):1-10.

33. Harlow, R.F. and R.L. Downing. 1970. Deer browsing and hardwood regeneration in the southern Appalachians. J. For. 68:298-300.

34. Hassinger, J.D., R.Maurer, and S. Sterner. 1980. The impacts of deer in suburban areas and parks. Unpublished report to the Penn State Ad Hoc Deer Committee.

35. Healy, W.M., R.T. Brooks and P.J. Lyons. 1987. Deer and forests on Boston's municipal watershed after 50 years as a wildlife sanctuary. Pages 3-21 in: D.A. Marquis ed. Proceedings of a Symposium on Deer, Forestry and Agriculture: Interactions and Strategies for Management. Soc. Am. For., Allegheny Chapter, Warren, PA.

36. Hough, A. 1965. A twenty-year record of understory vegetational change in a virgin Pennsylvania forest. Ecology 46:370-373.

37. Johnson, A. Sydney, Philip E. Hale, William M. Ford, James M. Wentworth, Jeffrey R. French, Owen F. Anderson and Gerald B. Pullen. 1995. White-tailed deer foraging in relation to successional stage, overstory type and management of Southern Appalachian forests. A. Midl. Nat. 133: 18-35.

38. Jones, Stephen B., David deCalesta and Shelby E. Chunko. 1993. Whitetails are changing our woodlands. Amer. Forests Nov/Dec.1993: 20-54.

39. Korschgen, Leroy J., Wayne R. Porath and Oliver Torgerson. 1979. Spring and summer foods of deer in the Missouri Ozarks. J. Wildl. Management 44(1): 89-97.

40. Kosack, Joe. 1995. The Pennsylvania Game Commission 1895-1995, 100 Years of Wildlife Conservation. Pennsylvania Game Commission, Harrisburg, PA.

41. Latham, R.M. 1950. Pennsylvania's deer problem. Pennsylvania Game News Special Issue I.

42. Lutts, R.H. 1992. The trouble with Bambi: Walt Disney's Bambi and the American vision of nature. Forest and Conservation History 36: 160-171.

43. Marquis, D.A. 1974. The impact of deer browsing on Allegheny Hardwood regeneration. USDA Forest Service Research Paper NE-308. Northeast Forest Experiment Station, Broomall, PA.

44. Marquis, D.A. and R. Brenneman. 1981. The impact of deer on forest vegetation in Pennsylvania. USDA Forest Service General Tech. Rep. NE-65. Northeast Forest Experiment Station, Broomall, PA.

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46. McCabe, R.E. and T.H. McCabe. 1984. Of slings and arrows: an historical retrospection. Pages 19-72 in L.M. Halls, ed., White-tailed Deer: Ecology and Management. Stockpile Books, Harrisburg, PA.

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48. McCaffery, Keith R., John Tranetzki and James Piechura. 1974. Summer foods of deer in northern Wisconsin. J. Wildl. Manage. 38(2): 215-219.

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51. Nixon, C.M. 1992. Forest fragmentation and deer. Illinois Natural Hist. Survey Rep. No. 314, Champaign, IL.

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53. Porter, W.F. 1991. White-tailed deer in eastern ecosystems: implications for management and research in national parks. Nat. Res. Rep. NPS/NRSUNY/NRR-91/05, United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Denver, CO.

54. Rhoads, Ann F. 1996. Something is missing. Pennsylvania Game News 67( 8 ):10-13.

55. Rhoads, A.F. and W.M. Klein. 1993. Vascular Flora of Pennsylvania: Annotated Checklist and Atlas. American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA.

56. Rooney, Thomas P. 1997. Escaping herbivory: refuge effects on the morphology and shoot demography of the clonal forest herb Maianthemum canadense. J. Torrey Bot. Soc. 124(4): 280-285.

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