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RDDs are not dependent on clear cutting. RDDs are based on the composition of all classes of timber.

Of course they are.

Please explain how RDDs are dependent on clear cutting. If there is no clearcutting in a WMU like 5C , does that mean the RDD would be less than a WMU 2G where there was more clear cutting.

Their total existencedepends on clearcutting being unfashionable. There is no good reason besides aestetics to not clearcut.

No, that is not true. The RDD for MSY density for deer would be much higher in 5C with no clear cutting ,than in 2g with clearcutting.

Actually that isn’t true!

I used to assist on doing tours at the deer enclosures on SGL # 30 where there were pens with different numbers of deer per square mile to study what affect they had on their habitat and their own survival. Each pen had about half of it clear-cut with regeneration started before deer were even put inside.

At 60 deer per square mile the deer would eat everything down to very low little of anything left they before winter was over they all die before winter ended during years when there was any significant amount of snow cover.

At 40 deer per square mile the deer ate all the preferred browse through the summer then during their first winter they cleaned off nearly all of the non preferred browse then managed to prevent any regeneration that should have occurred during their second summer. Those deer continued to slowly lose weight from their first winter on and then couldn’t survive in that pen through their second winter because they had depleted their food supply.

At twenty deer per square mile the deer and habitat were pretty closely matched and the deer never had trouble surviving though the habitat in the mature forest part of the pen never got to recover.

At ten deer per square mile you couldn’t even find the deer because it was so think with under story you couldn’t see through it. If hadn’t been for one old doe named Millie, who would walk out to great you, and the occasional pile of pellets you would see we would have had a hard time convincing people there were even any deer in that pen.

And this was not even an area with poor soils or steep rocky outcroppings like occur in much of unit 2G. Therefore, I can tell you with absolute certainty that the deer proved they couldn’t be sustained or even alive at 40 deer per square mile in even the better areas of unit 2G.

Back in the late 80s we even rented a bus and did a tour there for the USP. I wish those pens and that deer study were still there, it was a great eye opener for most people.

After the deer pens wewouldthen gojust a few hundred yards away, to Latham’s acre, and showed everyone that you can in deed get lots of great things growing, even under the canopy of a mature forest, if you fence out the deer.

R.S. Bodenhorn

You just accused Dr, DeCalesta of lying and totally misrepresented the research that he conducted. Is it any wonder that you have no credibility?

The farmland deer have started moving the last two weeks. With all the edges to feed on they don't looked stress out. Go to www.rwbrooks3.com these pictures are from cameras on three corners of the field behind my house.

Based on that, the habitat in 2G should be in excellent condition with over 70% regeneration ,since 2G had at or below 15 DPSM since 2000. It also shows that 2F is not being managed based on forest health as the PGC claimed because if it was ,they would have reduced the herd to the same density as in 2G.

Here is a quote from the SCS Certification Report, regarding the results of the study RSB referenced.