Forest restoration and browsing impact by roe deer

This paper presents the results of a long-term study carried out in the Hiesberg area of lower Austria. The results deal with the interaction between roe deer (Capreolus capreolus L.) and forest restoration focusing on the effects on habitat attraction, population performance, browsing impact and on the visibility of roe deer. Over the study period, habitat types providing good food (quantity) and cover increased the most altering habitat attraction in a positive way. Population performance. measured indirectly by observed sex ratio and fawn rate, shows a distinct delay to these habitat changes by a significant shift in sex ratio to the females. Browsing impact on forest regeneration increased significantly in the second half of the study period. The ecologically important deciduous tree species especially oak are affected. Logistic regression analysis, applied for deriving steering factors of a forest's predisposition to browsing impact suggests five parameters out of which three determine food and the other two deter-mine food independent settling attraction. They are ground vegetation coverage, regeneration density, raspberry browsing, visual range and thermal cover index. Results on the visibility of roe deer reveal a considerable impact of forest restoration measures and their implications on hunting. Finally, some conclusions for management are highlighted. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.