I've been in the research season for two weeks now.
We randomly planted nine American Chestnut seedlings at three sites along a 25-m transect. Two of these sites have deer and one does not and we're going to visit every other week to note the state of the seedlings. We tagged each tree with small aluminum tags.
We went to one site that should not have deer. It is completely surrounded by dense urban development. If you're curious, check out the end of Court Street in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Yet, there was literally a deer waiting for us when we pulled up. Unreal. I'll need to talk to a local about the deer because I have no idea how a deer would get there. The forest there was utterly devoid of native vegetation in the understory.
We also tagged a number of oak seedling and saplings. We'll follow these plants for years - I hope.
This week we'll water the plants, tag some more oaks, and set out a few more audiomoths and game cameras.
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