ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the problems faced by small woodlot owners—their lack of control over landscape features that affect and compromise their deer—forest management actions. As with other small woodlot owners, the Brubakers were only partially successful with using public hunting to resolve their overabundant deer issues. Although understory striped maple, birch, and black gum trees were supposedly undesirable to deer, their stump sprouts appeared highly palatable to, and were heavily browsed by, deer. The cage-like branching structure of the hawthorns and black haw protected at least some leaves and twigs of the oak and hickory seedlings, even under heavy deer browsing pressure, to the point where, in a year or two, oak and hickory saplings grew above deer browsing height and were also protected from antler rubbing. The prior owner was harvesting logs from the 8-ha woodlot when we bought the property, cutting only the highest quality sawlogs.
