New research from wildlife ecologists at Michigan
Technological University indicates that white-tailed deer may be making the
soil in their preferred winter homes unfit to grow the very trees that protect
them there.
Bryan Murray, a PhD candidate at Michigan Tech, and two
faculty members, Professor Christopher Webster and Assistant Professor Joseph
Bump, studied the effects on soil of the nitrogen-rich waste that white-tailed
deer leave among stands of eastern hemlock, which are among their favorite
wintering grounds in the harsh, snowy climate of northern Michigan. Webster and Bump are on the faculty of
Michigan Tech’s School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science.