Category: forest health

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2006-2007 deer season: final report

I have just received the final report from the hunters on our property for the 2006 – 2007 white-tailed deer season. They were incredibly successful.

The group removed a total of 45 deer from our property this year, 35 “antlerless” (does) and 10 “antlered” (bucks). Our hunter-friends tell us about the sizes of the racks on the ten bucks, the even bigger ones they missed, and the successes of their friends and family members. They will, if given a chance, tell stories, always true of course, about the hunt this year.

To me, the numbers are more important. Last year our friends took away 29 does and 3 bucks. In other words, this year they took 40 percent more deer than last year. In 2004, they harvested 30 does and 1 buck (that was a sad year for the hunters), while in 2003, they took 24 and 7. Their best year, before this one, was 2002 when they shot 32 does and 11 bucks.

I go even farther with the numbers. I multiply the number of deer times the vast amount of browse that each one consumes. Browse is a fancy term for the buds from the trees and shrubs that they eat—seven pounds, by one estimate, per day. Throughout the winter they thrive on browse. Buds pruned off by the deer represent leaves and twigs that won’t grow, trees and shrubs that may be stunted or killed. Our hunters have probably saved many TONS of buds, many hundreds or perhaps even thousands of trees and shrubs this winter.

The numbers are higher than ever due to several factors. On the last Saturday of the regular, two-week rifle season, December 9th, there was a very light snow cover and the weather was clear and bright. Our group, 11 families with about 16 active hunters, plus some of their friends, were all out to take advantage of the visibility. Also, they seemed to be responding to our pressure to take as many deer as possible. Skilled, motivated people did an excellent job for us.

While our friends particularly cheer one another when they get racks they can mount on their garage walls, I see the deer simply as forest consumers, as so many bud-eating mouths. Oddly, though, despite the impressive numbers, a few days after the close of the last flintlock season in mid-January, we began seeing numerous deer tracks in the new snow. More stories for our friends next year, and continuing worries about the forest for us.

–Bruce

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Hemlock woolly adelgid: new discoveries

adelgid twig

It’s all up and down the hollow. We’ve probably had it for a couple of years, but were too much in denial about the possibility to look for it closely. It’s easy to overlook in the early stages of an infestation, as you can see.

What does this mean for Plummer’s Hollow? Among other things, that some of the last really nice areas, spared from the tender mercies of loggers back in the late 70s, 80s and early 90s (before we consolidated ownership) will lose one of their main “climax” species. The deep hollow will no longer be as dark a place. And meanwhile, up on the drier slopes of Laurel Ridge, the mountain laurel is dying from a mysterious blight…

–Dave

UPDATE: Marcia wrote about her discovery here.

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First Adelgid Sighting

Marcia reports that she found the first sign of hemlock woolly adelgids in Plummer’s Hollow a couple days ago: remanants of the woolly masses on the undersides of a few twigs on a hemlock tree along the Ten Springs Extension Trail above the Big Pulloff — i.e., less than a half-mile from the bottom. This is what we’ve been dreading for some time now, as we’ve watched the adelgid wave move toward us from the southeast, where some of the best-known old-growth remnant stands, such as The Hemlocks Natural Area and Sweetroot Natural Area, have been destroyed. Adelgids have already established themselves north of us in the Rothrock State Forest, so we knew it was only a matter of time.

Though doubtless the northeast-facing slopes of Plummer’s Hollow were covered with old-growth hemlock two hundred years ago, now only a remnant population of second- or third-growth trees numbering in the low hundreds hangs on in the deepest parts of the hollow. This may be to our advantage, though, in slowing the advance of the adelgids — some reports indicate that hemlocks in rich, mixed conifer-deciduous forests hold out longer than those in pure stands. We are, of course, hoping against hope that a biological control will take hold. Insecticides aren’t effective against the adelgid, and in any case we wouldn’t allow their use even if they did work — overall biodiversity has to take precedence.

We’re in the middle of a cold snap right now, with nighttime temperatures hovering just above zero F, and needless to say we are cheering the cold on. We’d welcome temperatures ten or even twenty degrees colder than that, despite the inconveniences that might cause us. The loss of all mature hemlocks in Pennsylvania, while not catastrophic for the species as a whole, could have a devastating effect on forest ecostystems, especially cold-water fisheries.

–Dave