In einigen britischen Wäldern ist jeder junge Baum gestorben. Was läuft schief?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/10/britain-ancient-woodlands-failing-regenerate-forests-climate-drought-heat-disease-deer-hope-aoe?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Von OGSyedIsEverywhere
7 Kommentare
To answer the question: it’s deer.
Other issues make it worse but deer strip bark from saplings and eat them. *We have too many deer.* We *need* to shoot them, ideally for food to avoid it going to waste, but especially the introduced species like fallow and muntjac as the native ecosystem isn’t adapted to them.
Even red and roe deer have no natural predators left in the UK except man since wolves and bears have been extirpated, so they just breed out of control and eat whatever they come across.
I’ve personally seen a horde of deer on the edge of one of the woods around Birmingham eat all the saplings that I’d seen planted about a month previously when I was last there. They’re a menace.
Amongst The Guardian subscription pop ups and advertisements lies this clue:
„Global heating, disease and overgrazing by deer could all be causing the loss“
I’m confused as this isn’t new information.
In a natural woodland, one that isn’t being artificially planted and managed, the germination rate of a tree seed to a sapling is low, depending on the tree species between 5%-30%.
From those saplings, less than 5% will make it to me mature enough to produced their own seeds.
That excludes seasons were the weather causes increased failure rates such as too much rain, too little rain or storms etc.
Once you add in an over population of animals like rabbits and deer’s that are mostly unchecked due to a lack of predators, it’s no surprise at all.
The heatwave and drought won’t be helping – even my established shrubs are looking a bit peaky by the end of the very hot days. I can easily imagine that newer plants just won’t make it
It’s wild how deer have become such a destructive force without natural predators, those muntjac in particular are like tiny ecological bulldozers. Between their overgrazing and climate stress drying out saplings, it’s no surprise young trees can’t catch a break. Culling and using the meat seems like the most pragmatic solution, though I’m sure the Bambi crowd won’t love it.
Trees die due to chemical being sprayed into air to block sun.
Deer mostly, you can protect them by closing off areas with fencing tall enough to stop deer from getting in but that isn’t always ideal. The extended periods of heat with no rain really does not help but as long as a tree has a good deep root base it’s not normally a problem as forests are a lot cooler with not as much sunlight hitting the ground anyway. But yea more rain during the summer months would be nice. It has been way too dry the past few years in the summer.