Can the recent decline of small game be partially attributed to intense deer management?
Before answering, consider what studies are revealing and what possibly bodes for the future.
Deer management basics usually entail clearing and planting areas for lure/shelter crops, establishing various trees and shrubs, plus cutting and maintaining travel lanes. It seems these efforts would also benefit most wildlife species, but don't bet on it.
Deer usually don't need much help finding general forage. They also eat what small game likes but often tramp down bedding areas in and around food and cover sites, effectively destroying other wildlife's habitat.
Deer don't benefit from wide travel lanes. The creation of four-wheeler trails and widened deer paths allows easy access for predators, affecting both deer and most small wildlife species.
Small game survival is usually forgotten in the interests of attracting and holding deer. But deer and small game have many similar needs. Studies prove that unless there are substantial areas of tall grass and heavy briers, coyotes, bobcats and house dogs easily find and kill young fawns and destroy small game.
Many sporting magazine and television ads offer seeds, trees and shrubs as quick fixes for hunting areas. Blindly planting anything without doing research is asking for trouble because some exotic seed and shrub mixtures menace most natural forms of habitat.
Even if approved seeds, forbs and shrubs are used, some state wildlife agencies are debating the merits of "managed" food plots, possibly considering any nonagricultural crop a form of baiting and many nonnative plants as invading weeds.
Throughout the eastern half of the United States, phragmites, a salt marsh reed, are being widely spread by direct planting, transporting cut reeds for hunting blinds or by phragmite seeds accidentally adhering to animal hair and human clothing.
Phragmites do provide dense cover, but they quickly spread, smothering everything in their path and are virtually impossible to eradicate.
Habitat alteration has resulted in the rapid decline of many, once common, wildlife species. Sweeping changes have arisen from many nonnative plants.
What you sow you also reap, so consider the consequences before planting anything.
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