Deer and Rabbit Browsing and Available Winter Forage in Allegheny Hardwood Forests

Abstract

Those dealing with wildlife management are aware of the problems created when overpopulation by occurs in a given locality such as the Kaibab plateau in Arizona, portions of the Lake States, central and northern Pennsylvania and the Adirondacks of New York: Lack of balance between the population and its food can easily result when predators are few or are strictly controlled and when hunting pressure is inadequate to remove surplus animals. Scarcity of forage for during the critical winter months has long been a problem in the central and northern counties of Pennsylvania. In 1937 Seth Gordon issued a timely plea for understanding by the sportsmen of the need for control of an excessive xdeer herd by removing female as well as male during the hunting season. The situation was practically out of hand, however, and starvation losses cut heavily into the herd on areas where past browsing had depleted the available forage plants. As early as 1930 on the southern half of the Allegheny National Forest so numerous that their needs far exceeded the long term forage supply (McCain, 1941). By 1938 this forest, with a gross area of 739,000 acres, supported about 50,000 deer, or roughly one animal to 15 acres. A record kill of 24,000 does during the 6-day season of 1938 reduced this surplus. legal kill was even larger than the total that most sportsmen had been willing to admit existed in the area, yet nearly two animals remained for each one killed (McCain, 1941). Despite this reduction 4,500 died of cold and starvation during the winter of 1938-39. Through subsequent hunting and starvation this peak population on the Allegheny has been reduced to about 16,000 deer, an average of one to 46 acres in 1946. Large concentrations of are known to shelter on the southand west-facing lower slopes and valley bottoms during the severe winter months (Ehrhart, 1936). It is only natural that repeated browsing tends to kill back most of the available low cover of food plants on such sites. Past heavy use has reduced or removed many of the favored browse species and has created a socalled deer line on larger tree growth, particularly in these valley bottom areas. How much of this damage is actually due to the activities of and how much to other animals cannot be determined by general observation. While the population was building up to its peak, four half-acre plots in different stands on the Kane Experimental Forest were fenced against and half of each enclosure was also fenced to keep out rabbits. This work was done in the fall of 1935. During the next growing season a complete census of all tree growth 1.0 foot in I Northeastern Forest Experiment Station.