Management >> Wildlife management
The primary objective of wildlife management in the Forest is to maintain as diverse and complete a population of animals native to the Piedmont as possible. This is generally accomplished by restricting human disturbance in certain habitats and in other areas, employing timber management practices which are capable of creating widely varied habitat conditions.
Examples of wildlife management activities include increasing the number of stands less than five years in age, harvesting mature timber and developing pine stands, protecting lowland hardwood communities, and increasing the non-forested acreage in all divisions. The effective use of undisturbed or carefully manipulated vegetation corridors is another aspect of wildlife management within the forest.
White-tailed deer
In the past few years, Duke Forest staff and visitors to the Forest have noticed a substantial impact from deer browsing on understory shrubs, herbaceous plants and tree seedlings. These casual observations have been confirmed by analysis of data from permanent vegetation study plots in the Korstian and Durham Divisions.
In the spring of 2005 the Office of the Duke Forest conducted a spotlight population survey to determine the abundance and distribution of deer on the Forest. Volunteers from Duke University, N.C. State University and the surrounding communities participated in the study.
Survey results indicate that the Forest has unsustainably high deer populations on its Durham, Korstian and Blackwood divisions. After consulting with several wildlife experts, it was determined that the only viable population control measures would be either regulated hunts or targeted culling of the deer.
Following approval from the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, the Duke Forest conducted several highly-controlled hunts on a few remote sections of the Forest in the winter of 2005. These controlled hunts were done to test safety policies and procedures.
Results from this trial effort are currently being evaluated to determine if a more significant population reduction effort will occur next winter.
