A first memory: we're leaving the big city under a heat warning and
three-digit, mid-summer temperatures. We cross into North Carolina
just as a thunderstorm sweeps down across the forests and drenches
everything in relief. The forests: they're everywhere, green and dark
and lovely, thick with shadows and a thousand shades of green, rich
with the smell of summer rain.
A second memory: it's our first week, the boxes are still heaped in
corners; we are finding our bearings. In the early morning sun, an
enormous buck dozes quietly at the forest edge behind our house. He's
magnificent, stately, majestic, and offers some sort of welcome to
this new, sylvan lifestyle. The White-tailed deer, Odocoileus
virginianus.
Since then, of course, the deer have been a regular fixture of our
life. They return daily in sixes and eights, sometimes troupes of
marauding bucks, sometimes packs of quiet does with their fawns
trailing, sometime mixed. Mornings, evenings, they creep across the
hillside or skulk along the shadow margins. In the spring we stumble
upon spotted fawns cached behind hardwoods; on early summer mornings
we find flattened spots in the forest where they've bed down. We see
them most often just before sundown as they emerge from denser wood
and work their way down through the neighborhood.
But these two magic moments of course exist in a delicate balance, and
often conflict. Months after arriving, I waded straight into it.
I soon noticed the gorgeous little patch of forest outside my window
had no understory to speak of, no greenery lower than approximately 7'
off the ground. Older Oaks and Hickories seemed to be healthy enough,
but everything smaller was struggling. The deer I love were eating
the forest I love, preventing any new growth from forming. But North
Carolina is the original home of America's forestry programs, and the
NC Forestry department sells seedlings each winter. I decided to
plant some of the magnificent pines that make these forests so
lovely. And down a rabbit hole of learning I tumbled.
Over the next three years I would plant over 500 seedlings: Longleaf
Pine, Shortleaf Pine, Carolina Hemlock, Black Locust, Loblolly Pine.
But I've got very little to show for it. The soils are heavy with
clay and poorly drained, and nutrient poor. Summer rains fall
sporadically, leading to dry spells tough for seedlings just putting
out roots. But by far, the biggest issue was the deer, who chomp
everything worth chomping.
I've come to the conclusion that Whitetailed Deer graze and browse
just about everything within reach, even things they don't like. It's
nearly impossible to get new seedlings started when they are soft with
new growth and right in the chomping zone. I've learned a few other
things by observing how the deer mow their way through a forest:
* Deer seem so require several pounds of fresh greenery every day,
every single one of them.
* They have no apex predator, now that we've largely eliminated
wolves and coyotes in their space. Wolves and coyotes don't stand
a chance of being permitted in America's forested suburbs thanks
to their penchant for eating the occasional house pet. So the
deer are free to roam and reproduce.
* They can produce more than one litter of fawns per year when they are
well-fed.
* They have routes that they follow through the fields and forest, so
that one little seedling will be grazed repeatedly while another a few
feet away goes unnoticed.
* They eat plants like teenagers eat skittles strewn across the floor.
Hey, a skittle! Hey, a skittle! They seem to bite things they don't
like, only to return later having forgotten it to taste it once
again.
* They seem to crave variety, or just browse as they meander on
their browsing routes. There are plenty of other green plants around,
starting with a field full of wildflowers just up the hill. But here
they go, meandering through the forest trying to nibble the very few
green leaves left within reach. Just down the hill is a whole hedge
of things they like: no matter.
* The greatest damage arises from the fact that deer eat by clipping
the tops of growing plants, and they like the young, new growth
best. It means young plants struggle to take hold. Pine
seedlings' topmost point is called the apical meristem, which is
the area of a seedling that controls upward growth, creating new
tissue as it is pushed skyward. Deer clip this, bringing seedling
growth to a halt while the plant reorganizes. Often, the seedling
responds by pushing new shoots out the size, leading to fractured,
frenetic plants. If deer ate any other part of the plant, the
seedling would grow skyward relatively unmolested.
I've taken to caging my seedlings with chickenwire cones I created
myself. I'm looking into taller fences, barriers. I've learned you
can buy gallon containers of wolf urine to discourage deer. But I've
also learned this fight grows expensive fast, and is an uphill battle:
if you take the cages off when the trees are 6' high the deer can
still easily reach the green leaves and strip your trees
clean. Meanwhile, the deer knock over my cages in the night. When I
stake them firmly into the ground, I find them trampled.
I found myself thinking, this damned species is doomed to destroy the
very habitat that sustains it, they are too damned numerous, breed
too quickly, and are too hungry. They have no apex predator to keep
their population in check. But then I think, surely there's another
species on earth of whom the very same thing could be easily said.
Meanwhile, as the earth hurtles towards its next solstice, I prepare
to order a new batch of seedlings. This time, I'll cage them all and
fill this forest with green. Just wait.
Building forests requires patience and zen.
Meanwhile, the deer tell me, "Hey, come plant more trees. The last
ones were delicious."
