THE ISSUE:

Increasing white-tailed deer populations are creating changes in forest ecosystems, conflicts for people, and challenges for wildlife management.

ECOLOGICAL CONTENT:

deer browse, tree demography, breeding bird abundance and diversity, human-wildlife conflicts, stakeholder involvement, and management alternatives

STUDENT-ACTIVE APPROACHES:

turn-to-your-neighbor, pairs share, and citizen’s argument

STUDENT ASSESSMENTS:

minute paper, short answer questions, concept map, reflective essay

AUTHOR:

Tania M. Schusler

Environmental Issues Educator, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850, tms23@cornell.edu, www.ccetompkins.org

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

Data and figures used in this issue were adopted or adapted from original papers in the following journals: Conservation Biology, Ecological Applications, and the Wildlife Society Bulletin. Thank you to Charlene D'Avanzo of Hampshire College and Marianne Krasny of Cornell University for their thoughtful critiques of earlier drafts of this issue. Cornell's Human Dimensions Research Unit provided the management scenarios included in Data Set 3. The author developed this issue while a fellow with the Cornell Environmental Inquiry Research Partnership, a program funded by the National Science Foundation Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education Program and by Cornell University. This submission has also benefited from comments by TIEE Editors and an anonymous reviewer.

CITATION:

Schusler, T. M. August 2004, posting date. Ecological Impacts of High Deer Densities. Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology, Vol. 2: Issues Figure Set #2 [online]. http://tiee.ecoed.net/vol/v2/issues/figure_sets/deer/abstract.html