Wearing Orange for Forests: The Importance of Deer Hunting to Penn’s Woods

Heads up Pennsylvanians who enjoy recreating in the woods: the next three Sundays in November are open for hunting. Most other Sundays of the year are no hunting days, but since 2020, the state has opened up more days to hunters to make engaging in the sport easier including Sundays during bear and deer seasons.

This year’s Sunday hunting days are November 13 (during deer and bear archery seasons), November 20 (during deer archery in certain wildlife management units and bear firearms season), and November 27 (during deer firearms season and bear in certain wildlife management units). Statewide, the deer firearms season begins Saturday, November 26.

Whether hunting or recreating, it’s critical to wear hunter orange (fluorescent orange or blaze orange) when you’re out in the woods in the fall – on private or public lands. Hikers and bikers should wear at least one piece of hunter orange viewable from all directions, such as a hat, jacket, or vest. Also, cover your backpack with orange. And don’t forget your pets. Dogs should wear hunter orange or another high visibility colored vest, leash, harness, or bandana. Horseback riders also should wear a hunter orange vest or hat and use a hunter orange vest or rump sheet on your horse. For hunters, the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s current requirement is: in deer, bear, and elk firearms seasons, small game season, and those hunting coyotes during daylight hours within deer, bear, or elk firearms seasons, hunters must wear, at all times, 250 square inches of hunter orange material on the head, chest, and back combined, visible 360 degrees.

Beyond awareness of the upcoming hunting season, why should forest stewardship include caring about deer and the woods?

Consider our state’s forest history. Deer were locally extinct, or extirpated, in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, which was also a time when logging went unchecked and millions of acres of forest across the state were essentially clearcut. The huge demand for wood products, from timber to chemical wood meant trees of all sizes were stripped from the landscape. From that starting point, the forest we know and enjoy today grew back, with little pressure from herbivores. Major predators on those deer, such as wolf, were also lost at about the same time. While bear and coyote still take deer, there are far fewer predators than there are prey. Since that low point, the herd has rebounded significantly – and detrimentally – for forest health.

Deer are preferential browsers, with red and white oak, maple, ash, hickory, and yellow poplar being high on their preferred list. They can reduce seedling numbers, species composition, and seedling height growth through their feeding. And deer can consume 4 to 8 pounds of browse per day. If the forest habitat isn’t already healthy and with abundant browse (think of a young forest with lots of stems and available woody browse for deer to eat), very few deer can tremendously impact the trees and shrubs that are present. For forest landowners (the majority of forestland in Pennsylvania is owned by families and individuals), caring for their forest to ensure its continuity for future generations means thinking about, planning for, and trying to mitigate the impacts deer have on their forests.

For forest landowners who have a forest management goal to create forest of diverse ages, species, and structure – which will make it more resilient to other threats – this involves re-starting the forest and getting young trees established. However, a strong local deer population ready to feast on seedlings and young trees can prevent that from happening. Instead of giving up because of the high deer population, landowners can find help to achieve their goal. Monies and programs exist to keep deer out of areas where landowners are trying to establish forest, or to encourage increased hunting pressures to control local populations and allow the young trees to grow above deer browsing height – a lot of work for a naturally occurring species that has gotten out of sync with its habitats, but worth it when forest diversity is established.

So why does good forest stewardship include support for deer management and consideration for the deer-forest connection? Hunting, with its long history of sustenance, sport, and recreation is one of the tools that lets us positively affect deer populations, herd health, and health of its preferred habitat, the forest. So if you’re not a hunter but enjoy recreating on Sundays in the fall, maybe take a break the next three weeks and consider the efforts and activities of Pennsylvania hunters and the positive effects their harvests have on forest health. And if you’re out in the woods with the hunting crowd, wear your orange too and stay safe while this important work happens.

If you’d like to learn more about how deer and competing plants affect young forests, check out the Regenerating Hardwoods Forests publication from Penn State Extension.

And if you want to learn more about deer in the woods, check out the Deer-Forest Blog.