Winter:

 When there's 16 inches
 or more of snow,
 deer 'yard up' in
 conifer stands. They
 eat twigs and young bark.

 Spring:

 Grasses, forbs, sedges
 and ferns; browse

 Summer:

 Hardwood leaves,
 grasses and sedges

 Fall:

 mushrooms, beechnuts
 and acorns or mast.

Male White-tail

Can you think of anybody that hasn't seen a white-tailed deer? Although they're wary, fast, camouflaged, and have a good sense of smell, sight, and hearing, there are so many around that almost everyone has seen a white-tail. That hasn't always been true. The success of these deer depends on edges.

Deer are herbivores - they eat plants. They especially eat those that grow along the edges of forests. They also like acorns from oak trees and beechnuts from beech trees that grow in a mature forest. During the winter, if there is more than 16 inches of snow, they seek out dense conifer stands where the snow isn't as deep, the temperatures aren't as extreme, and they can eat young bark and twigs from the trees.

Before Europeans arrived in North America it's estimated there were as many as 40 million white-tailed deer on the continent. Four thousand years ago, deer and black bear were the most common food remains found in Native American middens. European colonists also found them to be a good source of food. So many were killed that as early as 1694 Massachusetts had declared a season to protect them from over-hunting. The white-tail population was about to start a roller coaster ride.

When you cut within a forest you get edge. There was a lot of forest cutting in New England through the 1800s. In some places, especially parts of Maine, there was a sharp increase in the number of deer, followed by decreases as the forest grew back. But when almost all the trees were cut, as in much of southern New England, that meant there wasn't much edge. The deer population crashed.

By the beginning of the 1900s, many farmers had moved west where farming was more productive. The forests began to grow back and the deer had lots to eat. It helped that some of their natural predators, mountain lions and wolves, had been extirpated. The deer population boomed.

We have edge today that supports deer. Houses, farms, and roadsides built in the forest, and logging and fires in the forest, create excellent habitat for deer. Without larger predators like mountain lions and wolves, people have taken over as the major control of the deer population through hunting. By controlling the date, number, age and the sex of deer that are hunted, wildlife biologists can maintain a healthy herd. In New Hampshire, there are 17 Wildlife Management Units for deer; in Maine, there are 30 Wildlife Management Districts. Each may have different laws to regulate the herd in that area. Every year, the hunting of thousands of deer in Maine and New Hampshire helps maintain a population that continues to live on the edge.