Record snowfall in northern Maine leaves deer herd in deep trouble

[jpak]

http://www.bangornews.com/news/t/news.aspx?articleid=162261&zoneid=500

ASHLAND, Maine - Several hundred yards off a road in far northern Maine woods, wildlife biologist Richard Hoppe hunched in the snow above a grisly but all-too-common sight this winter: the carcass of a young deer.

Scavengers had picked off much of the deer’s flesh. The head was gone.

But marrow inside the small femur told a heartbreaking tale about the brutal conditions faced by this ill-fated deer and thousands of others unlikely to survive one of the worst Maine winters in generations.

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Biologists are predicting that large numbers of deer — thousands more than during a typical winter — will likely have starved to death, frozen or become easy targets for predators before greenery and warm temperatures return to far northern New England.

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[msongs]

1. they will make up for it within a few years or so nt

[freethought]

2. I just moved out of Maine

This is 100% correct. Maine has gotten snow storm after snow storm. Not only that but the cold weather has been unusually persistent. I left the Portland, ME area just two days ago and there was still plenty of snow on the ground with freezing or below freezing temps. The snow just isn't melting. This winter is proving to be very stubborn. And it does not get better as you go north.

In the house where I lived you would see the deer passing through. As time went on they would come closer and closer to the house.
I would watch them munching on pine and evergreen twigs. That in itself is not a good sign. Then most recently I saw them munching on what looked like fallen leaves and branches. That's an even worse sign. On a trip I spotted two deer on a grassy patch next to the highway, almost like they were grazing. That's about as bad as it gets. When deer start choosing grass over browse they are truly on the edge of starvation.

Some people tend to think it is the cold that kills the deer. Not so. Deer are very nicely insulated against the cold. It is the snowfall that gets them. The deeper and more persistent it is, the more energy is needed to feed themselves. My own father hunted in Vermont for years and had pretty consistent luck for years. Then back in 1978 a HUGE blizzard dumped 3-4 ft. of snow on New England. It took several years and some mild winters to get the deer population back up again.