from a DNR Forest Regeneration ….

from a DNR Forest Regeneration Monitoring (FRM) project launched in 2018. The report was presented by DNR senior forester Jeff Sorenson.

“Sampling statistics included a variety of numbers that we have looked at, including seedling samplings, species, total numbers of trees, tree heights, overall deer browse, other things like plot locations, overstory, shade density, woody competition and years since the last harvest,” Sorenson said. “There were a variety of really important things for us to look at.”

Sorenson said Taylor and Bayfield counties offered the largest sample sizes of the 45 counties that were surveyed. In Taylor County, 142 stands that included 871 plots were sampled. The data collected put Taylor County in the chronic/widespread risk area for deer browse damage, which is at the high end of the scale above counties rated at minimal, incidental or acute/ localized levels.

The report said 83% of the recently-harvested stands sampled in the county are failing to meet regeneration standards and 73% weren’t meeting height expectations. “This is just the first report,” Sorenson aid. “It’s a picture in time, a three-year window. This is just the start. The more data that we collect over the long haul, the better it’s going to be to let us know where we’re at. The more data we can get, the better we can manage our woods for everybody involved.”

The impact of deer browse has been a long-debated subject among council members and there was skepticism in how to view this report’s numbers.

“We get it as far as forest regeneration,” Bucki said. “We want to protect it and I think we’ve been responsible in including that. But it gets a bit confusing. We’re not sure how low this population has to go before it’s acceptable. Do we have to cut our deer population in half in Taylor County? It’s a concern of ours, but we don’t know where we’re going I guess is what I’m saying.”

“I don’t think anybody is asking us to go down to 10 deer per square mile or anything beyond that,” Sorenson said. “We just have to make sure that we’re actively looking at these numbers every year to make sure that we’re not heading in the wrong direction or trending in the wrong direction.”