Andy Milbauer - Deer and our Campus Forest

Andy Milbauer and his Environmental Science students have set up a deer exclusion project to gain a better understanding of the impact of deer on the health of the Conserve School campus forest.

The deer exclusion project is based on a design from the Smithsonian Institute. In the Smithsonian project they constructed a multi-variable study to explore the effects of invasive species and deer browsing on forest regeneration out east. At Conserve School, in northern Wisconsin, they replicated the study with a slight modification to explore the effects of deer browsing and thinning of pioneer tree species to explore forest regeneration.

They chose a site near the edge of the Sylvania Wilderness Area where an intense storm had knocked down a mature forest. They staked out four plots that were each 4 meters by 4 meters. After marking the boundary of the plots the class counted and identified all trees over 4 feet tall, and estimated the percentage ground cover. Following this they returned to the sites and removed all aspen and balsam fir from two plots. The students then built deer exclusion fences around two of the plots so that we could reduce deer browsing on these sites.

The sites are as follows.

1. Control

2. Deer exclusion

3. Removal of early pioneer trees (aspen and balsam fir)

4. Deer exclusion and removal of early pioneer trees.

Every year Andy's classes will return to these sites to study forest regeneration under the different circumstances and repair potential net damage. The goal is to run the experiment for twenty years.