John Ozaga is fond of quoting an Eglish agrarian’s statement: The head grows according to the pasture.” You mention a variety of mortality impacts that remove deer from the UP’s landscape, but, other than a general nod to winter severity, you do not opt to focus at all on the top limiting factor that impacts deer survival, as well as herd growth– winter habitat condition,site abundance across the landscape of the peninsula, and status. Over seven years ago, the UP Habitat Work Group was formed as an initiative that melded professional foresters from State, Federal, private corporate, and private lands management entities together into an interactive sequential exchange that enabled updated functionality estimates, location mapping, updated functionality and condition estimates, use patterns, etc, that lead to development of site specific plans for each Winder Deer Complex within the UP, as well as management plans for these “Green Barns” to stabilize them and potentially grow their acreage. Since these form the pinch-point for the whitetail herd numbers to be carried through a normal winter with minimal mortality, this point is noteworthy, Since much of the evidence from multiple studies indicate that those Michigan deer wolves prey on are largely energy store depleted animals that result from winter length and severity induced starvation, their importance (WDCs) is further underscored.

I used to own a hunting cabin on 326 acres located north of the Sturgeon River gorge. I sold it 1.4 years after the two disastrous winters that occurred back-to-back in the mid-1990s after a lengthy conversation with John Ozoga.