Deer Limiting Factor examples

1. Domestic Livestock Competition: inadequate range utilization, forage production downturn.
2. Habitat Succession/Maturation: canopy closure, seral stage advancement, mature forage height.
3. Urban Sprawl: human habitat encroachment and/or detrimental land use changes.
4. Public Land Availability: shortage of public lands to actively manage habitat for expanded herds.
5. Increased Road Densities: motorized access, lower habitat effectiveness and deer security.
6. Riparian Impacts: concentrated animal groups and/or habitat over-utilization.
7. Timber Harvest Impacts: increased open road densities and/or vegetation quality/quantity.
8. Depredation: fence damage, standing forage loss and/or haystack damage.
9. Limited Private Land Access: private lands block public land hunt access, and/or "refuge" situations.
10. Artificial Feeding: public agency supplemental feeding, private lands and/or "emergency" feeding situations.
11. Habitat Conversion: burning, disking herbicide, etc.
12. Social carrying capacity exceeded: i.e. low landowner tolerance and/or urban conflicts.
13. Late seral stages needed: increase hiding and/or thermal cover.
14. High Density Recreation: Any focused recreational activity (commercial/non-commercial) which modifies/degrades the basic habitat elements and renders that habitat less suitable for deer and other wildlife.
15. Water Availability: inability to manage free-ranging deer population growth and distribution limited by year-round water resource availability.
16. Transportation/Water Conveyance Corridors: highways, railways, canals, ditches and other man- made corridors that can affect deer populations through direct mortality factors or limit/prevent access to essential habitats.
17. Mineral Exploration/Extraction: Any activity(s) related to mineral resource exploration, location and extraction which can modify or degrade the basic habitat elements and render habitat less suitable for deer and other wildlife.
18. Competition with other wild ungulates: increasing elk herd issues, lack of adequate forage, displacement, competition for resources, etc. is limiting the growth and recovery of the deer herd in a given area.

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