Deer forest study
Waihaha- Pureroa Forest
DOC's deer forest study, is shorthand for a study that investigates the restoration of forests affected by deer. Here you can explore what the study involves and ultimately how our forested sites can change in response to deer control.
Deer & forests in New Zealand
Deer populations have been established in the North and South Islands for approximately 150 years. The most widespread species is red deer. There are also populations of sika deer, fallow deer, wapiti, sambar deer, white-tailed deer and rusa deer.
Some forest plants are very attractive to deer. For example, when deer reached Secretary Island on the Fiordland coast in 1963 they browsed on:
- three-finger (Pseudopanax colensoi var. ternatum),
- fivefinger (P. colensoi var. fiordense),
- lancewood (Pseudopanax crassifolium),
- hen and chicken fern (Asplenium bulbiferum) and
- shrubs like Coprosma foetidissima.
Broadleaf at Waihaha study site,
Pureora Forest
Other favourite foods found in New Zealand forests include broadleaf (Griselinia littoralis), mahoe (Melicytus ramiflorus) and pate (Schefflera digitata).
By targeting these plants, deer can change the composition of the forest understorey. Food plants that can grow as epiphytes on other trees will maintain their presence in the forest, but they become uncommon on the ground. Plants that deer do not like to eat may get an advantage, because there is less competition for light or nutrients from palatable plants. However, if deer eat seedlings and saplings of canopy tree populations, there is a danger that long-term regeneration of forest at that site will be affected in some way.
Forests are also disturbed by a range of other exotic animals, like possums and rodents, and by natural events like storms and droughts.
This means that the effects of a deliberate reduction in deer abundance in a forest can be hard to tease out. Ultimately, we want to know the contribution that deer control can make to protecting ecological processes in forest and how influential that is compared to other management activities aimed at restoring forests.
Our study
In 2003 we began researching adaptive management to restore New Zealand forests affected by deer. There will be four sites in the study when it is fully operational. The research involves a lot of people - scientists, managers and interested forest users are working together on experimental design, overseeing the work, and interpreting the results.
The study is funded by the Department of Conservation and will continue until 2011. The project manager is Dr Clare Veltman.
When the study is finished, DOC will have a better understanding of how the four forested sites can change in response to deer control. DOC will also have a framework for doing adaptive management in future.
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