密歇根新闻广播 饥饿的鹿群将密歇根北部的森林啃食殆尽

Last month, we heard how an abundance of deer is reshaping the forests in northern Michigan. Deer are eliminating trees like maple¹, oak and cedar² in many places.

The trees can't reproduce because any seedling³ that sprouts⁴ up is eaten.

Today, we visit a forest in Leelanau County where a conservation group has taken an unusual step to address the problem.

Palmer Woods used to be a private forest managed for timber. Now, it is owned by the Leelanau Conservancy and it's open to the public.

"We're standing⁵ kind of in the middle of the southern end of the property in a deep valley," says Brian Price as he shows me the property he manages for the conservancy.

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There are more than 700 acres of forest here, just east of Glen Lake. Price says the foresters who managed this land knew what they were doing.

"Because you'll see really straight, beautiful trees; higher percentage of cherry, higher percentage of oak," says Price.

Even though it has been well managed, it has the same problems most forests in northern lower Michigan face. And one is too many deer.

"And the reason you can tell that for sure is you see evidence for that everywhere; anything that the deer like to eat is almost nonexistent in this woods anymore. And the things that they don't eat, which are the beech⁷ saplings, are everywhere," he says.

In fact, Price estimates nine out of ten young trees here are beech. So this fall, the conservancy fenced off more than 30 acres of Palmer Woods with a eight-foot steel fence. The fence is to keep the deer out.

"Mostly when you go by any place and you see a fence up, we think of farming, you're enclosing an area to keep the animals in," says Price. "Well, in this case we are specifically building a fence to keep deer out so it's an exclosure."

Within a few years, Brian Price expects the areas inside the exclosure to have plants that cannot grow in areas with lots of deer; trees like maple and oak, and also wildflowers that would otherwise be eaten, like trillium.

Exclosures like this are not new to conservation and Price has a pretty good idea what will happen, but he also expects to learn a few things particular to this area.

And he says the exclosure will help the conservancy demonstrate the damage caused by too many deer. It's a problem he says is invisible to the general public.

"What the deer exclosure does is it draws attention to what a forest should look like compared to one that is severely⁸ over-browsed. It'll be a stark⁹ contrast, we do know that. Everywhere it's been done it's been a very stark contrast," he says.

Only a small fraction of Palmer Woods will be protected by the fence, about five percent of the forest.

The only way to change the ecology of the entire forest would be to get hunters to kill more deer here, a lot more.

Research in Wisconsin has shown greater plant diversity in forests on Indian reservations where there is more hunting.

But Becky Hill says even if more deer are shot in Palmer Woods, it might not change much for the forest.

She manages all the natural areas for the Leelanau Conservancy.

"We can manage Palmer Woods' hunting policy the way we see best but just to the west is Sleeping Bear Dunes¹⁰ and of course there's private property surrounding, and obviously deer don't pay attention to what those boundaries are and so they're going to move between properties," she says.

Deer will have no choice but to pay attention to the boundary around a tiny fraction of Palmer Woods.

And there, inside the fence, the conservancy will be able to show what a northern Michigan hardwood forest looks like without so many deer.

1 maple   

n.槭树，枫树，槭木

参考例句：

• Maple sugar is made from the sap of maple trees.枫糖是由枫树的树液制成的。
• The maple leaves are tinge with autumn red.枫叶染上了秋天的红色。

2 cedar   

n.雪松，香柏(木)

参考例句：

• The cedar was about five feet high and very shapely.那棵雪松约有五尺高,风姿优美。
• She struck the snow from the branches of an old cedar with gray lichen.她把长有灰色地衣的老雪松树枝上的雪打了下来。

3 seedling   

n.秧苗，树苗

参考例句：

• She cut down the seedling with one chop.她一刀就把小苗砍倒了。
• The seedling are coming up full and green.苗长得茁壮碧绿。

4 sprouts   

n.新芽，嫩枝( sprout的名词复数 )v.发芽( sprout的第三人称单数 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出

参考例句：

• The wheat sprouts grew perceptibly after the rain. 下了一场雨，麦苗立刻见长。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The sprouts have pushed up the earth. 嫩芽把土顶起来了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

5 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

6 journalism   

n.新闻工作，报业

参考例句：

• He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师，可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
• He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。

7 beech   

n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的

参考例句：

• Autumn is the time to see the beech woods in all their glory.秋天是观赏山毛榉林的最佳时期。
• Exasperated,he leaped the stream,and strode towards beech clump.他满腔恼怒，跳过小河，大踏步向毛榉林子走去。

8 severely   

adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地

参考例句：

• He was severely criticized and removed from his post.他受到了严厉的批评并且被撤了职。
• He is severely put down for his careless work.他因工作上的粗心大意而受到了严厉的批评。

9 stark   

adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地

参考例句：

• The young man is faced with a stark choice.这位年轻人面临严峻的抉择。
• He gave a stark denial to the rumor.他对谣言加以完全的否认。

10 dunes   

沙丘( dune的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The boy galloped over the dunes barefoot. 那男孩光着脚在沙丘间飞跑。
• Dragging the fully laden boat across the sand dunes was no mean feat. 将满载货物的船拖过沙丘是一件了不起的事。