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9.3x57
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Reged: 22/04/07
Posts: 5500
Loc: United States
Re: Scotland... the deer are dead, long live the trees
      25/01/20 01:13 AM

The "solution" seems draconian, but as for ungulate depredation on plantations, I can vouch for the seriousness of the problem.

Back in '02 we clearcut a 75 acre chunk of my place here and then replanted 30,000 trees. The next winter we had an odd phenomenon occurring hereby we had a snow-pack that left about 6 inches of snow on the ground for a couple months. Picture a brilliant white carpet with little green polka dots. That combined with a resident herd of elk that moved in to squat on the place and the result was 98% depredation. This set us back about 4 years of growth and required me to hand clip and train thousands of trees.

My son is a forester for a private timber company and he manages about 80,000 acres of timber ground. One of the most serious costs they incur is losses to new plantation stock caused by deer and elk.

Deer and elk feed and move differently. Deer are essentially local and remain so, living in a relatively small area except for the introduction of attractants and for short periods of time for example during the rut. Elk live migratory lives and cover large distances. In the latter case, elk may not touch a plantation at all or...if they cover it in passing, may wipe it out in 2 or 3 days. It is said, and in this I am not in full disagreement, that wolves keep elk moving, and may positively serve to reduce depredation on new plantation stock. Certainly anything that keeps elk moving will be a benefit to the plantation owner...unless.....they are moved into a plantation they may never have encountered had they not been moved! So one cannot state with any definitive accuracy that wolves or any other predator "serve a purpose protecting plantation stock". I'd have to see proof of that and I am not aware at this point of a study indicating it to be true, tho I myself have some anecdotal personal experience to suggest it might be, with the caveat that when moved off my place they had to go somewhere else they wouldn't have gone had they not been moved off my place!

In short, there are always tradeoffs in land management, and so often things are not as as simple as they seem to be at first blush.

I don't know much or anything about the Scottish situation tho it seems to me {where have we heard this before...?} that the ungulate resource could be managed for the benefit of all, and not merely removed.

I am aware of the efforts to re-establish Scottish forests, which as many here may know, were cut down and disappeared hundreds of years ago. So as a tree farmer myself, I can't disagree with the primary goal, tho it would sure be nice if all the players could come up with a master plan that benefited all.

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Subject Posted by Posted on
* Scotland... the deer are dead, long live the trees Ripp 24/01/20 07:50 AM
. * * Re: Scotland... the deer are dead, long live the trees DarylS   24/01/20 08:25 AM
. * * Re: Scotland... the deer are dead, long live the trees 93x64mm   24/01/20 07:31 PM
. * * Re: Scotland... the deer are dead, long live the trees 9.3x57   25/01/20 01:13 AM

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