Oxfordshire Woodland Group

Hi Trampus,

What are they doing to the trees apart from eating them down to ground level ?

I have tried making cages from stock fencing that I put around any tree stumps that I would like to encourage to regrow in coppice fashion but they still manage to get in somehow.

John Morris at The Chilterns Woodland Project illustrated a deer cage in his News of The Woods publication of a type that the Forestry Commission are encouraging owners to build in their woodlands to establish a patch that is free of deer / rabbits /etc and though this does not provide an overall woodland solution it should help demonstrate to an owner the effect that browsing pressure is having in their woodland.

Ironically a few yards further along the ride in the same woodland a beautiful patch of naturally regenerated Scots Pine was seen growing undamaged without any form of protection and was not being overwhelmed by bracken.

The effects of deer browsing can also be seen by contrasting ground vegetation present on each side of a post and wire fence. In side the woodland the deer feel safe to browse whereas on the other side of the fence roadside vegetation is growing in a rampant fashion.

Chilterns

Hi Trampus,
The technical term is fraying for the damage being caused by the bucks to your trees. If it is any help ive been dealing with deer and the damage they do to trees etc for about 17 years with an ever increasing amount of success. Whether it is preventive measures or cureative you first need to identify which species of deer you are dealing with, as this will determine your best methods of dealing with the damage they can cause. If I can be of any help please feel free to give me a shout 07901826455.

DDM

In regards to the fraying roe tend to increase their amount of fraying they do from april till mid august. The reason for this is that bucks will be trying to remove their newly grown velvent on any unfortunate trees etc, once there antlers are clean fraying may ease but this can be short lived as they soon start again as they aproach the rut in july and august. more fraying tends to be evident if your roe population tends to have a higher number of young roe bucks or a high population for you area. Muntjac tend to do more rubbing of bark either to remove velvent or in marking their teritoreys all year round . In my experience more fraying damage is carried out in areas of high population ratio abit of good deer management can usually ease this damage. DDM

Not sure what happened there, I seem to have posted mid type.... What I was going to ask is, Where is the best place to start, the BASC? There are a few people locally who have expressed an interest, what should I ask them?

Trampus

Hi,

Roe deer as such lovely looking creatures -

It's just such a shame that they are so destructive especially to young planted trees and especially coppice regrowth.

They would appear to be perfectly adapted to live in and around woodland -

where they can obtain food and protective cover from the extremes of weather and predators.

Chilterns