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Forest Management for Wildlife Habitat Demo Sites Marinette County Forest Demonstration Site

Marinette County Forest Demonstration Site

The Marinette County Wildlife Habitat Demonstration Unit is part of the Marinette County Forest. Marinette County Forest manages 231,000 acres of land for a range of uses that include timber, wildlife habitat, recreation, and watershed protection. The Marinette County site is part of a collection of wildlife habitat demonstration units where integration of timber harvest with habitat management is being highlighted.

Fast Facts

  • Location: Parking area located at 45°32.127′ N, 87°54.235′ W
  • Size: 73 acres
  • Accessibility: Open to the public year-round

Management Goals

  • Provide deer habitat to improve hunting experience for hunters.
  • Increase age-class and structural diversity.
  • Generate deer forage.
  • Regenerate a mix of oak and aspen.
  • Maintain cavity trees.

Focal Species

  • White-Tailed Deer

Special Considerations

  • Care was taken to maintain ecological reserve areas for wetlands and streams

Conditions Before Management

White Cedar

(2 acres)

This was a stand composed of white cedar with some softwood small pole size timber.

Lowland Brush

(1 acre)

These were small pockets of mixed lowland brush.

Northern Hardwood

(4 acres)

These stands were a mix of hard maple with some oak.

Swamp Hardwoods

(15 acres)

Swamp hardwoods are composed of a mix of aspen, black ash, red maple, and balsam fir.

White Pine

(51 acres)

There were stands with large white pine with components of hardwood and oak.

Management Practices Implemented

To incorporate elements of deer habitat, the main focus was on diversifying horizonal and vertical structure. To explore how management practices were adapted in each ecosystem to incorporate habitat elements for focal species below.

White Cedar, Lowland Brush and Swamp Hardwoods

These stands are difficult to access with limited timber value. One pocket of swamp hardwood with significant aspen was patch/group selection harvested and one portion was included in a shelterwood. No harvest was completed in the remainder of the areas to provide pockets of escape cover and act as ecological reserves.

Northern Hardwood

This stand was marked for thinning favoring oak where possible.

White Pine

Portions of this stand were thinned (31 acres) favoring oak where possible while the remainder (20 acres) was marked for shelterwood favoring oak as seed trees where possible.

Specific Structural Elements Created for Deer Habitat

One of the main elements needed for deer are areas of dense cover that allow for three main needs: escape from predators, locations for bedding, and cover perfect for hiding fawns. Additionally, these areas of cover also serve for breeding areas as well.

During winter in Wisconsin, extreme wind chill and snow depth can present issues for deer health. Protected areas to temporarily escape these conditions can be important for the deer population. These areas are referred to as “thermal cover” or “yarding areas.”
Examples of areas with good thermal cover can include

  • Dense pockets of conifers like cedar or hemlock.
  • Topographically protected areas, such as coves with tree cover.
  • Dense cover of regenerating trees or frozen wetland pockets with dense vegetation.

Maintaining areas of thermal cover can be achieved through landscape preservation or creation. Not harvesting timber to keep pockets of conifer cover is an example of preservation. An example of habitat creation would be cutting through pockets of rapidly regenerating species like aspen.

While deer food preferences change dramatically during the course of the year, woody browse usually places a constant role. During late spring and summer, deer feed more heavily on forbs and legumes with some use of nutritious grasses as well. During this window of time, there is often quite a bit of available forage for deer. As summer leads into fall, high-nutrient acorns and similar hard mast begin to play a greater role in the diet of the deer. In agricultural areas, crop residues play an important role during that time of the year. After that resource is depleted, winter reliance on woody browse is quite heavy. Managing sites so that they produce woody browse, native forbs and legumes as well as hard mast will improve deer condition and carrying capacity for a property.

SITE MAP

PARTNERS

Thank you to the following for their support of this demonstration site: