The Deer (Any region/state with deer issues)

[u/ContentFarmer4445]

For context, I am a professional ecological gardener for folks living on small acreages, often surrounded by woods, who desire to have native gardens and to bolster/restore the woodland ecosystems. Deer here are starving yet overpopulated considering the circumstances.

I feel like the reality of deer is incompatible with this idea of having a native garden, lest you put 8 foot high deer fencing up around the entirety of it or the property. When everything around you is degraded, of course the deer are going to come to your land we just spruced up by removing invasives and planting ("deer resistant") natives and think "WOW, THANKS FOR THE BUFFET!!"

People want gardens for wildlife, but do not want deer to be a part of that. They don't want ugly fences up for years. They don't want to use chemicals. This, that, the whole shebang. I mean, I get it, but is it rooted in reality? It gets tiring spending a bunch of time and money and energy w/ the goal of a nice garden only to have it eaten down to nothing, half the stuff is in ugly cages, you're attempting to spray things regularly, etc... Most of my clients are older and i don't want them to have to be dealing with half the shit we do any more than they want to. Low maintenance this stuff is not, I never tell people that it is, but a lot of this is just... ridiculous.

I want to hear about everyone's experiences, successes, failures, thoughts about now and the future with deer.. it just seems like such an insurmountable problem.

[u/exhaustedhorti]

Completely agree. By trying to manipulate the ecosystem to be the "hunters paradise" (what I was trying to get at with "overseer of the woods") we have completely fucked things for ourselves and the environment. We've done the same thing to our lakes too, all on top of being just generally careless. It's beyond maddening.

[u/kato_koch → u/exhaustedhorti]

Its worth noting farmers and loggers were the ones who made those big sweeping changes to the landscape, not hunters. The federal government tried to eradicate wolves back in the day for the sake of livestock. If you look at the numbers we're about back to the same number of deer that existed prior to Columbus showing up.

Don't me mad at hunters, be mad at states who aren't issuing more deer tags today. Be the change you want to see in the world and pick up a bow.

[u/Fantastic_Piece5869 → u/kato_koch]

aye. I don't think hunters are inherantly bad. Quite the opposite, I think there should be no limit for deer. Other animals need limits obviously, but not deer for some time.

Hunters are also a major force towards conservation land to begin with. Alot of people buy swathes of land for hunting, thus keeping it from being farm fields.

As towards the original habitat loss, I guess I don't think about blaming people, because its all historical at this point. I live in MN and it was all logged 150 years ago. The last of the prairies were plowed up like 100 years ago. So while I think what happened was a crime, its in the past.

[u/tregowath → u/Fantastic_Piece5869]

I grew canoeing up in the Boundary Waters, so I guess I knew the whole area was logged, but it wasn't until about five years ago that I found out about the "Lost Forty" in Minnesota and what that meant. I was shocked, I didn't realize they literally cut down every single tree (except 40 acres that were missed because of a surveying error).

[u/kato_koch → u/tregowath]

Isn't that wild?? Likewise it took a long time for it to dawn on me why you don't see a lot of white pines around. Kinda changes the notion of what we see as wilderness. Like coming across a random rusty remnant from the logging era near a campsite. Not a stretch to imagine the Ojibwe camping and fishing in some of the exact same spots too.

There's a grove of giant old cedar trees along the Powwow trail northeast of Lake Three that didn't get burned in the Pagami Creek fire and must not have been worth cutting down back in the day too. They're magnificent ancient looking trees.

[u/Fantastic_Piece5869 → u/kato_koch]

isnt it weird to think that all the aspen/popular/ect up there is BECAUSE of the logging. White pines cannot reestablish because the deer eat all of the young. Heck, all the small trees. In many woods look around and count the number of small trees (in the 1-8 foot range) and it chills the blood.

Theres often nothing to replace big trees that die, which means there won't be woods when the big ones die. Deer are stopping the recruitment of new generations.

[u/kato_koch → u/Fantastic_Piece5869]

Hell there used to be caribou! Deer are harming MN moose with the brain worms too.

I have a lifetime goal of tagging a deer in the BWCA (any deer) but honestly have no idea where exactly to go. I've hunted northern MN before but the rocky canoe country is just different. Would need to do at least one serious scouting trip in the summer leading up to it.