“These charismatic spring ephemerals, like trilliums and Pink Lady slippers, and these other flowering understory plants - they’re gone from large swaths of our landscape,” he said. Many nature lovers like Arnow say they can see deer damage just by walking in the woods. The resulting lack of biodiversity can make forests less resilient in the face of pest pressure and major climate events. And deer dietary preferences do not lead to equal browsing across plant species - they’re often happy to consume seedlings, saplings, native flowers, and other understory plants while leaving invasive brush alone. “Wherever you go, whether you are in the Northeast or out on rangelands, once you have these big herbivores in the system they all do the same thing - they eat,” said Bernd Blossey, a professor of natural resources and the environment at Cornell University. Two white-tailed deer eat berries off a branch in the Pennsylvania woodsīen Hasty / MediaNews Group / Reading Eagle via Getty Images “ we have a beautiful overstory of mature oak trees zero oak saplings in the woods, there’s no future for the forest,” said Arnow, whose concern has turned into an obsession with herd management. With fewer bears and mountain lions around to keep their numbers in check, deer can reproduce with abandon and decimate the young trees and native plants that live beneath forest canopies. But for people like Arnow, who has a background in environmental science, the biggest issue is the impact of too many deer on the forest. Once a rare sight, deer have become something of a pest, spreading disease and causing fatal car accidents at an increasing rate. “I felt like, for the first time in my life, was participating in an ecological process,” he said.Īcross the United States, the deer population has ballooned in recent years to an estimated 30 million. Instead, he experienced a sense of purpose. ![]() When he saw the deer hit the ground, he didn’t feel sadness or guilt. He ran downstairs and grabbed his crossbow, stepped outside, and pulled the trigger. Then one November day, he looked out the window to see a deer - not only on his own lawn but right in front of his archery target. Besides killing a chipmunk or two as a kid, he was new to hunting, and he was starting to get discouraged: He’d only gotten a few shots within range and they were all misses. For weeks, former suburbanite Eli Arnow had spent his mornings and evenings stalking deer in the woods around his new home in New York’s Hudson Valley.
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