Tour Stop 6: Enclosures
Public Enemy Number One, America’s Most Wanted, the Billy the Kid of our eastern forest: the white-tailed deer. With populations running as high as 70 deer per square mile it’s a wonder how anything misses the bottom of their four-chambered stomachs. Any forest restoration project that fails to address the deer dilemma will surely fail. Habitat fragmentation and the disappearance of natural predators (wolves, cougars and bobcat) have left humans with few ways to address this problem. With a good group of volunteers, five hours and about $800, we have installed fence enclosures to protect our investment in native plantings. These fences are eight feet high, and although a deer can leap a ten-foot fence, the enclosures are strategically small enough that deer will not attempt to breach them. We are planting species that complement the soil type, canopy cover and present geographic ranges as closely as can be determined. We have intentionally planted the same species outside the barriers in order to investigate the likes and dislikes of herbivores. This comparison will allow us to make educated decisions as to what we will plant in the future. We have invited local universities to help us with our fence projects in order to design scientifically sound experiments in the hope that we can become more efficient in our restoration work as well as offering students an opportunity to get hands-on experience in field research.
Skunk cabbage fence
This area is a small section of the property that is dominated by skunk cabbage. This is another area that we chose to erect a small fence enclosure. Within this fence is planted a state endangered species called Swamp pink (Heliotus bullata). It associates with skunk cabbage and does well in saturated soils. The reason swamp pink is endangered lies in the fact that we've lost more than 50% of wetlands in this country compounded with difficulty in establishing it in areas where it hadn't existed previously. This area has also been planted with Cardinal flower, Turtlehead and Buttonbush. Deer are not afraid of getting their feet wet as we can attest to by the herbivory that has taken place here. We have been netting plants with a nylon mesh in an attempt to salvage plants that were trying to establish outside the enclosure. Wetland systems have been shown to contain higher levels of biodiversity than any other types of habitats. With this diversity comes the added benefits to you and me in terms of cleaning the air we breathe and the water we drink.
Swamp pink.