Bull, its not about timber values or harming the land for me;its about harming the deer habitat. Take Buckthorn for example. It really only fits one habitat niche and that would be over head cover in non winter periods. It does not hide fawns at all, It is hardly browsed even in the worst of winters at least here, it shades the ground and thus eliminates existence of plants deer actually eat, it does produce a berry that is heavily fed on by deer here around the first week of December but I'm unable to find where the berries have much if any nutrition. And a buckthorn stand once established completely inhibits plant diversity.
The deer do use it to travel through in full canopied woods where there is minimal ground cover and they do enjoy bedding in it. I wouldn't call it deer habitat though;it just seems like it because the real deer habitat has been eliminated where the buckthorn dominates.
Make no mistake about it; these invasives are a huge deal, a huge negative deal! I can see the day coming here if it is not here already that the property with the least invasives will have the most deer. It will be or already is THAT SIMPLE..
So far in this area we have prickly ash, buckthorn, Multi Floral Rose and honeysuckle bush. In some woods ferns are taking over as well. The farms carry the deer from planting thru till fall but usually that's it. There are some farmers that still operate sloppily leaving a good part of their harvest in the field but there are more that leave a barren empty field behind them. The deer must eat and buckthorn, MFR and HS just isn't going to sustain them.
I'm allocating a good part of my time on my property to killing invasives, some of my planned projects will just have to wait. I think,no, actually I'm completely convinced eliminating those invasives is that important. Sure some of it makes awesome fall cover but if the deer can't find food hiding won't be an issue.
