Thursday, January 22, 2009
Bill Cochran's Outdoors: Aging of national forest is bad news for deer hunters -- Part 2
Bill Cochran is a Roanoke Times outdoors columnist.
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Van Humphreys, who lives in Craig County, can remember hunting in the national forest when you couldn’t see much beyond 50 yards because of the thick understory. It was ideal habitat for deer, not to mention grouse and other wildlife species.
Now often you can see twice that far because of the scarcity of cover. That’s particularly bad for deer and for deer hunters. The same can be said of grouse and woodcock hunters.
“No protection, no browse equal no game,” Humphreys said in response to last week’s column on the decline of deer in the national forest.
The national forest is aging. Browse is giving way to mature trees and a park-like atmosphere.
“There is a slow but steady decline in quality of deer habitat,” said Jay Jeffreys, a regional wildlife manger for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
While mature trees can produce mast, namely acorns which deer relish, mast crops are unreliable. When they fail, as they did in 2002 and 2003, a mature forest becomes a wasteland. The result: deer productivity and recruitment are impacted, said Jeffreys.
Whether they realize it or not, hunters are locked in a battle with environmentalists over how the national forest will be managed. Environmentalists want more wilderness and roadless areas, which they are likely to get under the Obama Administration. This means less logging and other minumpliation of the forest, the kind of activities that create quality habitat for deer through new growth.
There is room for both wilderness and enhanced deer habit on the more than 1 million acres of national forest in Virginia, but that hasn’t kept some environmentalists from trying to hog it all. Either they don’t care or understand what their actions are doing to wildlife.
Hunters have exerted little effort in fighting back, although they have science on their side. Many simply have switched their attention to private property, where deer are abundant. This lack of hunting pressure adds to the decline in the number of deer being killed on the national forest.
“Many of our staff believes the reduced number of hunters results in a significant reduction of deer movement, thus fewer deer coming before the hunter’s gun,” said Jeffreys.
What you have on the national forest is an interaction of a number of factors -- poorer deer habitat, increased predators, fewer hunters, mast failures and more liberal hunting regulations that are designed to address the overabundance of deer on nearby private land but also impact national forest herds.
Jeffreys correctly places habitat decline at the apex of the equation, but he gets an argument from Doyle Ritchie of Rockingham County who has become a major critic of the DGIF’s deer management practices. Ritchie believes the national forest deer herd has been harmed by DGIF regulations that crop off an excess of does and young bucks.
While it is true that DGIF has attempted to address the decline in the national forest deer herd by setting more restrictive bag limits on forest property, Ritchie says these efforts have been offset by the addition of an extra week of muzzleloading season and increased youth hunting opportunities.
“I’m just really angry about the way the national forest is going downhill, yet deer flourish in places right next to the forest,” said Ritchie. “I don’t think it’s a lack of food or mast crop failure. I think the problem is really poor management practices.”
A case could be made that there are plenty of deer on private land. So why manipulate the national forest for deer? The answers: There are sportsmen who depend on the national forest for their hunting. Other wildlife species, even song birds, benefit from a young forest habitat and the day may come when more hunters will depend on the national forest as private land is developed.
HERE’S WHAT HUNTERS CAN DO:
1. Take an active role in the management of the national forest. Right now the George Washington National Forest is revising its Land and Resource Management Plan. The plan is tilting toward removing 42 percent of the forest from active management practices, the kind that provide deer habitat. Several input meetings have been lightly attended by hunters. There are a couple remaining: Jan. 29, 6:30- 9 p.m., Rockbridge County High School, Lexington and Feb. 5, 6:30-9 p.m., Peter Muhlengerg Middle School, Woodstock. Also check the forest’s Web site for information on the plan revision. Let your congressman and senators know that you want deer/grouse habitat to get a fair shake in the management of the national forests.
2. Participate in the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries’ current regulatory process with an eye toward establishing hunting laws that address the needs of the national forest. Check HuntFishVa.com for opportunities to express views at public meetings and online. Beyond that, tell DGIF and forest officials that you would like for them to rekindle the spirit of the 70-year old Cooperative Wildlife Management Agreement that mandates state wildlife officials working hand-in-hand with federal forest officials.
Check Cochran Mail Bag for input from readers.
