Deer Desperadoes

I wrote last year (“Masting Aftermath,” 12/26/12) about experiencing a heavy masting year for oak acorns. (The masting process is one in which oak trees somehow collaborate to grow a superabundance of acorns every few years, thereby coating the forest floor with far too many acorns for critters to eat—ensuring that some survive to grow the next generation's oak trees.) Everywhere I trekked in the woods last year, the ground was carpeted with countless acorns. I had to watch my step, lest I slip on them and fall.

So last winter the deer, squirrels, turkeys, and other critters were fat and happy—gorging themselves on the oaks' bounty. All that overindulgence came to a screeching halt this fall, as the trees were unusually stingy in their acorn crop. The result is severe hunger in the ranks of these acorn harvesters. I don't know how the squirrels and turkeys are faring, but we've seen lots of evidence of famished deer.

We depend on our free-roaming dogs to keep the deer from invading our garden, and they do a good job of it. A garden fence deters the deer to some degree, but the dogs love to chase any deer who takes a second look at the fence and is contemplating a jump over it into veggie heaven. So once again we made it through the summer with no deer incursions in the garden.

This fall has been a very different story, however. As foraging on tender plants in the woods was brought to a close by the beginning of cold weather and no backup supply of acorns was to be had this year, the deer have repeatedly invaded the clearing. Numerous shrubs and bushes do not get fenced, as the garden does. That is usually no problem, because I've chosen varieties of shrubs known to be shunned by deer.

Well, that may be true for normal years, but when starvation threatens, the deer become desperate. They'll eat most anything green, as well as many other types of barely edible plants. It's irritating as hell to go out in the morning and find that deer have devastated our holly, privet, and other evergreen shrubs.

It makes me wish I had caught one in the act with a large stone in my fist, which I could ricochet painfully off its butt. But when my wave of fury has subsided, I feel sympathy for their plight. What kinds of desperate actions might I take, if I were starving? I try to let go my ire at the severe damage they've caused. After all, most of those shrubs will probably recover next spring... or so I fervently hope.

But I can't help wishing their stolen meal gives them a big bellyache. If so, it might deter them from returning and finishing off what little of the plants they spared.

Masting Aftermath—Part 2

Another remarkable facet of the masting process is that oak trees somehow communicate with each other, so they all mast simultaneously. If instead, a tree created an abundance of acorns solely on its own schedule, the widespread acorn abundance would never occur. It is not known exactly how the trees cooperate, but it seems likely that they do so by floating chemical signals on the wind. Oak trees for thousands of acres around get in sync with each other and mast together, collectively outwitting the local critters.

The animals that are enjoying the masting feast around here are those mentioned earlier (squirrels, mice, deer, and blue jays), as well as pigeons, ducks, woodpeckers, and bears. In fact, long ago, farmers would release their domestic pigs in the forest in masting years, to fatten them up for free. The acorn nut is packed with nutrients: proteins, fats, carbohydrates; and minerals like calcium, phosphorus, and potassium.

The rub for the animal diners is that that the oak tree also imbues the acorn with tannins; they taste bitter and mess up an animal’s gut, preventing most of these nutrients from being absorbed. Clever animals have evolved a counter tactic by burying the acorns or placing them in an exposed location where rain can slowly leach some of the tannins out. American Indians—a very clever animal—used to soak cracked acorns for days in water, to make them more edible.

So, what will be the aftermath of a masting year around here? Obviously, the oak trees “hope” that come spring we will see many small oak saplings popping up—some to become mighty trees one day and keep the oak forest in perpetuity. As to the acorn-eating critters, they will eat well this winter and probably produce a prodigious amount of offspring next year. Come next fall, they will encounter harder times, however, when no masting happens, and some of them will perish. That’s the way of nature. There’s no cruelty or design to the process. Some critters must die for other to live. It’s part of the great recycling program.

There is one more interesting aftermath of a masting year that I recently discovered, while talking to a neighbor. He is an excellent hunter and keeps his family’s freezer well stocked with venison. He’s found that deer hunting this year is a little different. He says that normally he can perch in his tree stand and in time, deer will wander by, as they browse for food. This year, however, the deer aren’t moving around much, since they can stay in one location and chow down on an abundance of acorns. He has to go find them. Next year, when acorns are back to normal, he may once again be able to hunker down in his tree stand and have them come to him.

Masting Aftermath—Part 1

This fall was a huge masting year for local oak trees around here. The number of acorns they put out must be more than 20 times the normal crop! I have to be careful walking in the woods, lest I step on a cluster of acorns and watch my feet slide out from under me—as if I had stepped on a banana peel or a bunch of ball bearings on a concrete floor. The local acorn-munching animals—squirrels, mice, deer, and blue jays—will be fat and happy all winter. Their larders will be overflowing and the forest floor will still remain peppered with jillions of leftover acorns.

And that, of course, is exactly why nature evolved the masting process: to create such an overabundance of acorns every few years that the voracious animals can’t possibly eat them all. It’s a way that the oak trees ensure the future of the oak forest—all those leftover acorns will result in an abundance of oak saplings next spring.

There is no intent involved in this process, no plan; no design to seek out a desirable spot. It’s more a case of creating an abundance of seed… most of which will die or get eaten; a tiny fraction will survive and grow. Similarly, fish and other species generate a huge amount of eggs, with the expectation that a tiny fraction will survive and carry the species on.

People have known about this oak masting process and have tried to predict when a such a year will come along. But the oaks even outsmart humans. Europeans have attempted for a few hundred years to forecast the coming of a masting year, without success. Nature’s intelligence remains unchallenged.

Some tree species—such as maples, sycamores, and poplars—distribute their seeds with the help of the wind. It does a tree no good if its seeds drop close to the parent. That’s competition that the parent doesn’t need (as well as the necessity to avoid inbreeding), and the offspring will lose the struggle for survival to the parent. So nature’s wisdom has evolved various methods to disperse the seed some distance away—to a more nurturing location or even to transport the species to an entirely new location.

A maple seed is a beautifully designed helicopter-like wing that spins as it falls to the ground—slowing its descent, so as to allow any wind gusts that may come along to float the seed off at a distance. The fat acorn, however, drops straight down, so nature has evolved another way to disperse them: various animals do the job of transporting the acorns away from the parent. Many acorns don’t even get a chance to drop: blue jays will remove them directly from the tree and spirit them off to some distant lair.

Squirrels cache most of their acorns in widely scattered hiding places. Although they have an excellent memory for their secret spots, not every acorn will be retrieved later and eaten. What’s more, the squirrel usually buries the seed, so if an acorn gets forgotten, it’s in the perfect underground location to sprout and grow.

More on masting next time…