For properties with especially high deer numbers and impacts, you can obtain special state permits that allow antlerless deer hunting beyond standard limits.

Different land types can support different numbers of deer. You can find out whether deer are harming your woodlot with this browse assessment.

Deer are what’s known as a “keystone species,” meaning they have a major impact on the woods. Understanding the changes deer cause to a woodlot is the first step in learning how to live with them.

If you’re reducing deer populations on your land, you may wind up with more venison than you can use. Donating that venison to a local food bank is a great way to put that meat to good use while improving the health of your woods.

How many deer visit your property? You can find out using this “pellet count” survey method.

Young trees, both newly planted and naturally growing, will benefit from protection from deer. Deer protection can be as wide-ranging as fencing off an area of your woodlot or as specific as tubing individual trees.

Dying trees don't mean the end of your forest as long as there are baby trees to replace them. Installing a deer fence is a good way to prevent deer from eating the seedlings that will become your future forest.

It is illegal to feed wild deer in New York State. You might think you’re giving them a helping hand by putting out corn, or maybe that if you feed them they’ll leave your plants alone. But in reality, you’re harming both the deer and your plants.

You know you’re in for an adventure when the first thing a landowner says to you is, “So have you heard about my psychotic deer behavior?”

Cooking can be cathartic. This week on MyWoodlot, Heather Hilson shares her Winging-it Venison Stew recipe, cooked low and slow. It’s hearty and comforting – perfect for those colder rainy spring days in the Catskills.

The lack of squirrels in the woods didn’t seem like a big deal to me at first, but after seeing one predator after another, I couldn’t help but link the two.

Nothing but deer tags to eat this year? Don’t sulk. Get out there and start scouting.

It’s a bumper crop year for red oak acorns in the Catskills.

Every timber harvest has an area where logs are sorted and then loaded onto trucks for delivery to a sawmill. These areas are called landings, and they are more impacted by logging than any other part of a harvest because of all the equipment driving around. Right after a harvest, a landing can look messy, with the plants worn away and bare dirt exposed. But these areas don’t have to stay messy.

New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Watershed recreation lands provide the public with many opportunities for outdoor fun, including hiking, fishing, and hunting. Since January of 2020, I’ve been running four trail cameras on several DEP properties. Well, three now that one “went missing”. Recently, I programmed the cameras to take videos, and in this blog, I share the highlight reel.

My family always eats a big meal around Christmas, and this year, that got me thinking. What do deer eat this time of year? During the spring and late summer they feast on new growth – leaves, grasses, and herbaceous plants (like spring wildflowers). In the late summer and fall they shift to fruits, nuts, acorns, and farm crops.

Few woods-related topics are as important – and as emotional – as white-tailed deer. In his 2013 book Deerland: America’s Hunt for Ecological Balance and the Essence of Wildness, Al Cambronne delivers a thorough, well-researched, rational discussion of this often irrational topic.

This MyWoodlot blog was adapted from a National Deer Association article by Lindsay Thomas.

Hunting is the primary way that states attempt to control deer populations since many of the natural predators (like coyotes, wolves, and mountain lions) do not control the deer populations anymore.