Impact of deer on woodland ecosystems

 

Heavy grazing by wild deer can result in severe damage to planted trees in both new native woodlands and in commercial forestry. It can also prevent natural tree regeneration and reduce populations of valuable ground layer plant species.

Projects

The aim of the projects below is to improve our advice on reducing the damage caused by deer:

• Collaborative frameworks in land management: A case study on integrated deer management
• Assessing the effects of bark stripping by deer
• Deer density and impacts in lowland woodlands
• Developing methods to monitor performance and health of deer
• Estimating deer recruitment rates from cull data
• Methods of assessing deer population density
• Methods of assessing the impact of deer on woodland
• Modelling deer population dynamics