Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

As a final examination for a bachelor in forest management the student must pick a subject for a degree project, the student is free to choose any subject with attachment to the forestry. This report is a follow up study on a degree project which Carl Westling wrote during his third and last year of studies for a bachelor in forest management.
This report will measure and compare the forest browsing on a 1100-hectare estate named Selesjö in northern Östergötland and how intense the damages are in younger stands done by the deer species in the area, such as red deer, European moose, fallow deer and roe deer, the comparison will reach over three years of inventories done by Carl Westling and this reports writer Jonatan Henricson. The amount of browsing of rowan, aspen, sallow and oak in both young and old forest will also be compared to see if there are any differences of where the browsing is more intense.
The degree project will as well count the amount of dropping at the estate, this will hopefully lead to a better view over the size of the deer population. The difference between the former report is that the sample surface will be bigger in this study to see if there will be a more precise estimation of the deer population at the estate.
The result from the studies of 2017 shows that the amount of forest browsing is similar to the earlier studies, with a slightly higher browsing rate on pine and birch but the browsing of spruce stays low. From the inventory made on rowan, aspen, sallow and oak the results shows that there is a higher amount of browsing in younger forest.
The enlarged sample areas lead to a higher estimation of the deer populations on the estate, but is still probably a bit to low according to the inventory based on observation.