Mianus River Gorge publishes 15-year study on forest regeneration and deer management
“At the start of this year, researchers from Mianus River Gorge, an H2H partner, non-profit nature preserve, and conservation group, published a study regarding a 15-year deer management program and its effects on forest regeneration in a suburban region of southern New York.
The goal of the project was to monitor the impacts of deer browse on forest regeneration, as an overabundance of deer has been shown to have detrimental effects on the ability of forest plants to regrow. A management program was thus implemented in 2004 that allowed recreational archery-based hunting, and simultaneously established 22 vegetation plots that were monitored every three to five years. Researchers also tracked white-tailed deer numbers with camera traps and used these three datasets – hunting, deer numbers, and vegetation surveys – to determine whether deer numbers were reduced and whether this impacted forest regeneration.”
To learn more about MRG’s Published Research and read the paper, click here.