Having grown up in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, it is hard to remember the first time I ever saw a deer. In childhood, I did not despise them for their diet (the shrubs on my family's property) or think of ways to get rid of them, but instead enjoyed watching "Bambi", or spotting them in the yard and watching the white of their tails bob as they gracefully ran. However, it wasn't until I became an environmental biology major in college that I began to think of their impact on the forest and our daily life. Deer have become so overabundant in certain areas that they are causing some real problems, and the population needs to be managed in the best way possible.

It is important that in states such as Pennsylvania and New York, where the deer are overpopulated, deer management plans are implemented. It amazed me when I learned how much research, data collection, planning, and discussion needs to go into the management decision and execution process. For the past two summers, I have studied the deer population trends and the effects of deer eating habits, or browsing, on the environment at Black Rock Forest. (www.blackrockforest.org ) Black Rock is a 3,800 acre preserve located on the Northwest side of the Hudson Highlands between the New York towns of Cornwall and Highlands, Orange County. The forest manager, John Brady, has collected deer population, management, and hunting data from 1984 to this day. I have been spending time collaborating with John to compile, interpret, and analyze the deer data. My goal is to use these numbers and information to educate others on the severity of the deer population situation and this effect on the forest and our environment.

In the next couple of weeks, I will keep a running log of the deer effects on the forest and different techniques for deer population estimates and management, such as a spotlight census, winter tracking, transects, hunting, and bow hunting. A class at Barnard College-Columbia University entitled "Environmental Literature, Ethics, and Action" taught by Diane Dittrick, Laura Wright Treadway, and Randall Balmer, will assist me in presenting this information to residents of Cornwall and to the public via this blog.