Biology And Management Of White-tailed Deer In Alabama

to 70 square feet per acre (Yarrow and Yarrow 1999). This allows enough
sunlight to reach the ground to greatly improve food production in these
stands, especially when combined with prescribed fire, herbicide treatment,
mowing, and/or discing.
Clearcutting small blocks of trees is another forest management
practice that improves deer habitat by opening the forest canopy and
creating more plant and habitat diversity. Clearcutting works equally
well in hardwood and pine stands. Deer make greatest use of the first
300 feet inside a clearcut (Kammermeyer and Thackston 1995). For
this reason, clearcutting for deer habitat improvement should be limited
to smaller blocks, usually no more than 40 acres in size. These
smaller cuts also create a patchwork of habitat types which increases
the amount of habitat diversity. When possible, clearcuts should be
linear in shape (long and narrow), with irregular boundaries. This
maximizes the amount of edge created by these openings (Kammermeyer
and Thackston 1995). Most clearcuts produce a tremendous amount of
deer browse during the first four or five years following harvest. Portions
of these openings can be maintained in an early stage of succession
by using prescribed fire, herbicides, mowing, discing, etc.
FERTILIZATION
Another technique that increases both food production and food
quality is fertilization of native plant species. Fertilizer can be applied
over very large areas, such as entire stands of timber following thinning,
or in smaller areas, such as a patch of a preferred food plant.
Either approach can greatly improve the quality and quantity of deer
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