Ethan Tapper on Monday afternoon led 40 people on a walk through the Angora Fruit Farm into the Antietem Lake Park and talked about “How to Love a Forest,” the name of his book that he has been promoting on a tour throughout Pennsylvania.
The 35-year-old Vermont native and forestry specialist had some tough love to offer, particularly regarding invasive plant species and the white-tailed deer population.
The program, sponsored by the Berks County Parks and Recreation Department, started in the old orchard at the fruit farm, where Tapper riffed on the nuances of fruit trees and the subtleties of the stone walls that separate the orchard from the forest.
“It’s pretty wild to think about,” he said, picking up a rock from the fencerow. “You run into these stone walls in the woods, and you’re like, ‘Oh, there was a farm here at some point.’”
But it’s more than that, he said.
“There could have been a homestead here, where there were families that lived for generations and managed the land as agricultural land,” he said. “The fact that we have forests at all, that they were basically completely gone from the landscape, and that now when that agricultural use stopped, that they just came back, is incredible and a thing that we need to celebrate.”
Tapper led the group along the trail through the forest pointing out structural subtleties, how the various tree species develop, the nature of the different sizes and ages of trees, different generations of trees that are present — from monster oaks that probably predate the forest to more recent trees like black birch.
“What I call the miracle of regeneration,” he said.
“When I do a lot of forest management where we’re trying to take young forests like this and actively manage them to be more like old-growth forests, we’re trying to encourage them to have those attributes, like big old trees, multi-generationality, dead wood on the ground,” Tapper said.
In the Antietam forest, though, there are examples of why that regeneration faces difficulty.
He walked up to a small shrub along the trailside, an introduced species called Japanese barberry.
“One example of a thing that’s going to prevent that is this, which looks so humble,” he said as he fanned the branches. “How could this hurt anything? But actually, it’s a very big deal.”
Tapper also pointed to bittersweet vines encircling trees.
“That’s a non-native vine that can just out-compete stuff on the ground and then can also climb trees, causing structural damage,” he said.
The biggest threat to the forest, though, is the overpopulation of white-tailed deer.
When Tapper first walked up to the stone fencerow in the orchard, he was startled to look through the forest and see clear through for hundreds of yards with no understory.
“But these deer are not evil,” he said. “They’re a normal species that are taking advantage of an opportunity to live and have no predators except people. It’s hard to envision a future for this forest because pretty much everything is getting eaten by deer.”
Lisa Gauker, recreation and special events supervisor for the county, noted that Antietam Lake Park has a deer population of at least 200 per square mile.
Tapper believes a healthy forest should contain around eight to 14 deer per square mile, with 20 being the maximum that a healthy forest can sustain.
“Everyone should be a deer hunter,” he said. “I’m really excited about the idea of not just having new hunters that are exactly like the old hunters, but having new hunters who are like all different kinds of people — not to kill the biggest buck in the world but to help maintain the population of this animal on a level on the landscape, so we can have orchids here again and to eat the most delicious most guilt-free, sustainable meat imaginable.”
It’s going to take accepting the social unpopularity of what is required to do this, he said.
“You all are brave enough to deal with the nuance of navigating this dissonance that is required to solve this problem, recognizing that we’re not trying to eradicate all the deer, that we just want a sustainable level of deer in the landscape, and we want deer that are healthy, and that’s what we need to be doing.
“But it is unpopular, because deer are beautiful and amazing creatures,” he said.
That ethos rang true for Karen Palcho of Oley, who was an engaged participant in the walk.
“I’m a particular fan of limiting the deer population through whatever means necessary,” she said. “Tapper’s sense of humor and realism — even if people might not like the idea, he presents it in a way that could open people’s eyes.”
Tapper doesn’t see all gloom and doom for our local forests.
“This forest can be much more diverse and resilient,” he said. “We could have so many more species of nesting songbirds here.
“And so this is an opportunity not for us to get rid of something, but to build something. And I think it’s our responsibility, too.”
Source: Berkshire mont
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