Originally Posted by Gunplummer (Post 3628575)

I am not suggesting mature forests are ideal habit, I am stating it. You seem to know a lot about preferred browsing species, did you take a poll from the deer in your area? The biologists are always falling back on what was "natural" before the Europeans came to Pa. and destroyed the balance. A mature forest is what they are talking about. I never read about Indians logging off Pa. forests. Deer do not need acorns to survive, but it helps. It is the prefered food of deer, period. They will browse on laurel even after a morning of feeding on acorns. It may be a digestion thing, I do not know. There is not enough done after logging to repair what has been done to the forest. Planting a couple of apple trees or letting the logging companies replace hardwoods trees with pine seedlings is a joke. I don't know the number, but the SGL behind Cabelas in Hamburg has small plots of hybrid chestnut trees planted there. Go pick up as many as you want, nothing eats them, or maybe.....there is no deer to eat them?

Originally Posted by RSB (Post 3629150)

I am not suggesting mature forests are ideal habit, I am stating it.

Are you saying mature forests are not good deer habitat? If you are you are only partly correct. Mature forests don’t support as many deer as seedling/sapling stands but they support a lot more deer than pole timber. Plus if you have a mature forest that has the correct balance of deer, with the shrub layer that should occur in a healthy mature forest, the mature forest can be very productive for deer.

You seem to know a lot about preferred browsing species, did you take a poll from the deer in your area?

In a sense they have taken food preference polls from deer. Deer foods have been extensively researched over the years by putting a set number of deer in various enclosures of known sizes with different species of trees and plants present. From that they can see what deer eat first and even what deer don’t eat until they are starving to death. They have also been able to determine from those enclosures how many can live in the various habitat and forest types and conditions before they starve to death.

The biologists are always falling back on what was "natural" before the Europeans came to Pa. and destroyed the balance. A mature forest is what they are talking about.

I am not sure what point you are trying to make with this comment. We have entirely different forest type and structure now then when the settlers arrived here. It will never be like it was before the lumbering boom years of the late 1800’s and early 1900s.

I never read about Indians logging off Pa. forests.

Though it is true that the Native Americans didn’t log large tracts as man does today it is also known that the Indians did use fire to alter the forests and make large opening and meadows as a form of both forest and wildlife habitat management.

Deer do not need acorns to survive, but it helps. It is the prefered food of deer, period.

Though acorns are a preferred deer food when they exist it is not something deer can count on since many years there are no acorns. Since no one knows in advance what years we will or will not have acorns or when you are going to have a harsh winter you simply have to manage your deer populations as if you were not going to have a mast crop and a lot of deep snow when the deer have to survive on the woody browse available in wintering grounds habitat.

They will browse on laurel even after a morning of feeding on acorns. It may be a digestion thing, I do not know.

Deer do actually eat some laurel even during the summer, but it is not a high quality deer food and when deer are eating it in any quantity it is because the habitat conditions are very poor. I can also show you where for many decades the high deer populations were preventing mountain laurel from reestablishing on the fringe of a deer wintering grounds. It wasn’t until we put a small fence in a patch of inches high laurel and hemlock that we discovered it was deer preventing both the hemlock and laurel from growing there.

There is not enough done after logging to repair what has been done to the forest. Planting a couple of apple trees or letting the logging companies replace hardwoods trees with pine seedlings is a joke.

In most cases they shouldn’t have to plant anything to get new trees regenerating after timbering an area. Nature plants hundreds of thousands of new seedlings of highly preferred deer browse on every acre of suitable soil every year. If nature can’t keep up with the deer at such a high planting rate man certainly isn’t going to help much by planting additional seedlings. Certainly man can benefit some areas though by supplementing the area with some quality food producing trees and shrubs, but it shouldn’t be needed to get a new growth forest started after doing a timber cut.

I don't know the number, but the SGL behind Cabelas in Hamburg has small plots of hybrid chestnut trees planted there. Go pick up as many as you want, nothing eats them, or maybe.....there is no deer to eat them?

Chestnut is a good species because it is late to blossom and most years produces because it is rare for it be adversely affected by the last frosts that frequently kill the oak blossoms. Since deer, turkeys, bear, squirrel and several other species eat chestnuts, especially if they can get the smaller nut American/Chinese chestnuts established game prefer it will be a good thing for the future of native wildlife populations.

Dick Bodenhorn

Originally Posted by sproulman (Post 3629180)

i agree on CHESTNUT .if disease resitant chestnut is found i have vision of thousands of them along pipelines etc.what is sad is what has happened on route 44 near black forest inn. they cut every tree,did not leave a oak at all.for miles it looks like bomb went off.
disgusting is all i can say..............:eek2:

Originally Posted by moosemike (Post 3629594)

The loss of the Chestnuts had a big impact on the Bear population too or so I'm told.

Originally Posted by RSB (Post 3629518)

The lose of the American chestnut has really played a major part in both current and future deer numbers. Getting it back in the right places could really be a major improvement too.

During the years of harsh winters with deep snow conditions the deer in the northern tier simply have to abandon much of the best habitat and get forced into the wintering grounds valleys, rivers and stream bottoms. Those areas are where the pine/hemlock bottoms are supposed to be and at one time they were pretty much made up of that type of habitat. Those areas were the most protected from the deep snow conditions and also provided the thermal cover best suited for deer survival. Inter-mixed with those pine/hemlock stands were both rhododendron thickets and chestnut trees. Those stands provided what was normally an abundant food supply and escape cover where the deer could avoid predation.

With the timbering boom of the late 1800’s they cut down the pine/hemlock forests and built cities, roads and railroads through the deer wintering grounds valleys. That forever changed the ability of the valleys to support the deer numbers they should and once could. That might never change. Then when we lost the American chestnut, a very consistent mast production tree in the northern tier due to its late blossoms, the deer lost their major winter mast crop. That forced the deer to rely more on woody browse and acorns as their winter food. Since acorns tend to be more of ridge top species many of them simply aren’t available to deer when they need it the most. That then put more pressure then nature intended on the woody browse of the wintering grounds habitats until those habitats actually became so degraded they couldn’t support many deer.

If we ever get the chestnut back it could have a profound affect on the number of deer we can once again support through the winter. I hope that the first places planted with the hybrid chestnut is around the deer wintering grounds where the deer could get the most benefit from it during those harsh winter years.

Dick Bodenhorn

Originally Posted by RSB (Post 3629644)

I am sure the bear ate a lot of chestnuts back in the day they grew across our northern tier. But, in most areas of the state the bear populations are still very high so I am not sure the chestnut really had that much influence on the bear populations. I am sure the loss of the American chestnut had a profound affect on what the bears were eating after the loss of the chestnut though. Since bears are omnivores with the ever increasing ability to live closer to people it seems they have just shift their food priorities to what they can get by living closer to people.

The loss of the chestnut probably had more of an affect on deer, turkey and squirrel populations then on bear populations due to each species ability to substitute to alternative foods to replace the importance of the chestnut in their diets.

Dick Bodenhorn

Originally Posted by RSB (Post 3627108)

Please don’t judge the quality of all Pennsylvania Sportsmen on the things you read on this message board. I have been dealing with both the worst and the best of hunters for over three decades and I find that though Pennsylvania has its share of criminal minded hunters the fact still remains that the vast majority are honorable and honest hunters.

Granted many don’t have the best understanding of the complexities of deer management, the wildlife/habitat relationships or the predator/prey relationships but that doesn’t mean they don’t care about or respect the values of the resources.

Dick Bodenhorn

Originally Posted by moosemike (Post 3629837)

I was talking about back in the day in regards to bears. I agree we have a great bear population currently. I read an article in the PA Game News Treasury book by a Bear trapper named Chauncey Logue (I think) and he talked about how the bear numbers took a dive after the Chestnut blight of 1907 or something like that.