Week of October 19, 2009
Updated 10/22. The latest news is at the bottom of this post. -------------------------------------------------------- Culls Expand as the Deer Chomp Away By JOSEPH BERGER, NY Times TAIT E. JOHANSSON and James F. Nordgren do not hate animals. In fact, they help run the Bedford Audubon Society, which protects birds and other wildlife in northeastern Westchester and eastern Putnam Counties. Yet, as they gaze across a meadow to a forest behind their headquarters here, their resolve is strengthened to support a measure that the public does not usually associate with conservation groups — deploying bowhunters to kill white-tailed deer. What the two glimpse beyond the meadow is a four-foot-high void, called a browseline, under the dense stands of hickory, maple and oak trees. The void has been carved out by deer, which have gobbled up all the low-rise shrubs, wildflowers and saplings as efficiently as a hedge trimmer. With no trees younger than 20 years to speak of in those woods, these con...