Deer Damage to Forest Regeneration: Using AVID to Assess the Impacts

Deer Damage to Forest Regeneration: Using AVID to Assess the Impacts
Deer impacts to forest regeneration are widespread across New York State. Landowners need simple and reliable methods to assess browsing damage in forest stands and decide if deer management is warranted. Working with staff from NYSDEC and SUNY-ESF, we developed the AVID protocol (Assessing Vegetation Impacts from Deer). In stands with adequate light, where tree regeneration would be expected, plots with tagged seedlings are established and measured annually to evaluate seedling growth rates by tree species. Our research has shown that if tree seedling height growth is less than 10% per year, that is an indicator that deer may be inhibiting successful forest regeneration. We encourage landowners to evaluate deer impacts on their property and contribute data to the statewide AVID database.
Information about AVID is at
AVIDdeer.com or your app store for the AVID deer app

[@philosborn1840]

You should try and converse more with your comments section.

[@browpetj]

Good info here on Blue tongue virus (hemorrhagic disease). It seems the insect vector and other hosts affect the distribution quite dramatically in deer. If ag is near with sheep with proper environmental conditions and the Culicodies vectors etc... deer fatalities increase for a time. I guess keeping sheep nearby may be a means of control, increasing prevalence in some areas. The adaptation to the virus is fast though and with it being epizootic in nature, this checks out with the info provided here regarding the sporadic nature of mass fatalities. Very interesting to get field expereince on this and thanks for sharing. The virus itself is not as adaptive in nature as other more prevalant and endemic viruses. This makes it a hit or miss and short term control barrier I guess. And any promotion of this virus results in reduced ROI on sheep farming ag activities which is a shame. Anything we can get to impact deer populations is worth studying I guess. In Scotltand the environment is so harsh, so accessible and forest coverage is so low, hunting alone has a big impact.