So regardlesss of what hunters have to say about there being not enough deer in Michigan, the fact of the matter is that deer are literally "killing the state's forests......Michigan State University forest ecologist Mike Walters is warning that "deer are slowly eliminating certain kinds of trees from northern forests, like maples, oak, cedar and aspen............. "U.S. Forest Service researchers have noted that even if areas with high deer densities were managed to reduce the impact of deer, there may be long-lasting legacy effects (Royo 2010)"................. "Deer are also well-documented vectors for the dispersal of non-native exotic plants (Knight et al. 2009, Baiser et al. 2008, Williams and Ward 2006)"..................While Wolves are back in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, their "partner" in deer management, the Puma, is not along side them in bringing deer populations back in line within optimum biological diversity bounds.............In fact, as we have posted on this blog innumerable times, "no native vertebrate species in the eastern United States has a more direct effect on habitat integrity than the white-tailed deer"............. "There are no hard numbers, but in many states deer populations continue to rise(25 to 150 per square mile) well beyond historical norms(6 to 10 per square mile in colonial times)"............... "In many areas of the country deer have changed the composition and structure of forests by preferentially feeding on select plant species".................As Ecologist Aldo Leopold stated in his landmark A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC(1949), "I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear if its deer"

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What hungry deer mean for Michigan's northern forests

By PETER PAYETTE • NOV 10, 2016

With the start of firearm season next Tuesday, hunters will spread out across Michigan in search of white-tailed deer. Long, cold winters in the recent past have not helped deer thrive up north, particularly in the Upper Peninsula.

But foresters and conservation groups say there are still far too many deer in northern Michigan, and they are creating severe problems for forests.

Favorite food items

Mike Walters is a forest ecologist with Michigan State University. He’s standing on state land just north of Petoskey.

Most of the trees that tower overhead here are sugar maples, about 100 years old. But in the understory, where the young trees are coming up, there are almost none.

“The deer have eliminated the sugar maple seedlings in many areas,” he says.

Instead, there is an abundance of beech trees. Deer don’t like to eat beech or ironwood trees.

Walters is doing a research project on more than 100 forest sites like this in Michigan, and he says this forest is not unusual.

“This isn’t the ringer site that I took you to or the only place where beech dominates the understory. This is really an incredibly common occurrence in these forests,” he says.

Walters isn’t just worried about sugar maples, although they are important.

He says healthy forests need a mix of tree species, not just one or two. Diversity makes forests more resilient against problems like diseases and insects.


Deer at 6-12 per square mile versus deer 25+ per square mile

But deer are slowly eliminating certain kinds of trees from northern forests, like maples, oak, cedar and aspen.

Don Waller is a botanist at the University of Wisconsin.

“We’re seeing a forest that’s being transformed before our eyes,” he says.

Waller says the kinds of trees that do well are ones deer don’t like, such as spruces and firs.

Pumas needed back in Michigan woodlands

“If that continues, and it certainly has been now continuing for a period of at least 20 or 30 years, we completely change the character of the Northwoods forests,” he says.

Keeping deer abundant in the north

One reason there are so many deer in Michigan is because hunters like it that way. And rules for hunting are often designed to keep deer abundant.

So the group of people that could reduce the number of deer in northern forests would rather see more deer there.

“It’s an irony, hunters like to hunt of course, but they like to hunt in conditions where there are many deer and where they can choose which deer to shoot,” says Waller.

No reason to hunt Wolves--Let them hunt the deer

Waller says the problems in northern forests have become serious enough now that deer are starting to suffer from a lack of food.

But Ashley Autenreith does not think that is happening in Michigan. She’s a wildlife biologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

“Of course, there are areas that have been over-browsed, that’s no secret, but on a larger scale I don’t actually think that that has occurred,” she says.

Logging some trees could help new seedlings to grow

Back in Emmet County, Mike Walters is trying to figure out if Michigan can have its cake and eat it too: that is, have a lot of deer and forests with a diverse mix of tree species.

His crew is marking trees that will eventually be logged but in unusual ways that they hope will allow more seedlings to sprout. They will also tear up the ground in some places and even use chemicals to stop other plants from choking out young trees.

Walters says it might not look pretty.

“But we are to a point with some of these managed forests with the decline in diversity in the overstory and the steep decline in the diversity and quality of the understory that we have to do something,” he says.

Walters says it will take about ten years before they can see the results of these experiments.

But he thinks this is the only answer, since it is unlikely that Michigan will try to reduce the number of deer in the Northwoods anytime soon.

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Too Many Deer: A Bigger Threat to Eastern Forests than Climate Change?
August 22, 2013 

By Allen Pursell, Southern Indiana Program Director, The Nature Conservancy in Indiana; Troy Weldy, Director of Ecological Management, The Nature Conservancy in New York; Mark White, Forest Ecologist, The Nature Conservancy in Minnesota and the Dakotas


In August, 2012 The Bloomberg View published a staff editorial entitled Deer Infestation Calls for Radical Free-Market Solution. The Wall Street Journal then ran a story in November 2012 entitled America Gone Wild, noting the impact of overabundant deer. If business news organizations can talk freely about deer, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) needs to speak openly as well. Aldo Leopold long ago warned us of the problems of a growing deer herd. Have we waited too long to heed his advice, or is there still time to reverse the damage done?

No native vertebrate species in the eastern United States has a more direct effect on habitat integrity than the white-tailed deer. There are no hard numbers, but in many states deer populations continue to rise well beyond historical norms. In many areas of the country deer have changed the composition and structure of forests by preferentially feeding on select plant species.

In northern Minnesota, TNC staff demonstrated that decades of overbrowsing led to recruitment failure for many tree species, a shift in subcanopy and canopy dominance towards non-preferred white spruce, and significantly lower forest productivity (White 2012). In New York, TNC scientists report that one-third of New Yorks forests are currently compromised as a result of excessive herbivory (see New York Forest Regeneration Study).

Findings similar to these have been documented across the country. U.S. Forest Service researchers have noted that even if areas with high deer densities were managed to reduce the impact of deer, there may be long-lasting legacy effects (Royo 2010). Webster (2005) found severe and lasting impacts at Smoky Mountain National Park to be so complete that some plants such as trilliums were unlikely to recolonize local areas on their own. Deer are also well-documented vectors for the dispersal of non-native exotic plants (Knight et al. 2009, Baiser et al. 2008, Williams and Ward 2006).

Indirect effects on wildlife have been reported as well, such as widespread declines of North American songbird populations (Chollet 2012). One study found forest songbirds that preferred nesting in the shrub and intermediate canopy layer declined in abundance and species richness as deer density increased (deCalesta 1994).

White-tailed deer likely impact every landscape east of the Mississippi River. The damage has been insidious — both slow moving and cumulative. Unfortunately, the harm is often overlooked, or worse, accepted as somehow natural.

In our opinion, no other threat to forested habitats is greater at this point in time; not lack of fire, not habitat conversion, not climate change. Only invasive exotic insects and disease have been comparable in magnitude. We can argue about which threat is more significant than another, but no one who walks the eastern forests today can deny the impact of deer to forest condition.