Deer Limiting Factor examples
- Domestic
Livestock Competition: inadequate
range utilization, forage production downturn.
- Habitat
Succession/Maturation:
canopy closure, seral stage
advancement, mature forage height.
- Urban Sprawl: human habitat encroachment
and/or detrimental land use changes.
- Public Land Availability: shortage of public lands to actively manage
habitat for expanded herds.
- Increased
Road Densities: motorized
access, lower habitat effectiveness and deer security.
- Riparian
Impacts: concentrated
animal groups and/or habitat over-utilization.
- Timber
Harvest Impacts: increased
open road densities and/or vegetation quality/quantity.
- Depredation: fence damage, standing forage
loss and/or haystack damage.
- Limited
Private Land Access: private
lands block public land hunt access, and/or "refuge" situations.
- Artificial
Feeding: public
agency supplemental feeding, private lands and/or "emergency" feeding
situations.
- Habitat
Conversion: burning,
disking herbicide, etc.
- Social
carrying capacity exceeded:
i.e. low landowner tolerance and/or urban conflicts.
- Late seral stages needed: increase hiding and/or thermal cover.
- 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.
- Water
Availability: inability to manage
free-ranging deer population growth and distribution limited by
year-round water resource availability.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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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