Six of the garden’s twenty-five acres are enclosed by a deer fence, which helps exclude the locally overabundant white-tailed deer population. The fence also allows visitors a first- hand opportunity to compare the deer- browsed areas with the un-browsed area inside the fence.
Deer population management is essential to maintaining or restoring ecosystem health in our region’s natural areas and suburban landscapes. With the increase of local deer populations, Cornell’s natural lands have experienced changes in forest structure, decreases in native plant populations and reproduction, and increases in invasive plants. Since our native plant and wildlife abundance and diversity are tightly linked, losses ripple up the food chain, negatively impacting many other mammals as well as insects, reptiles, amphibians, and birds.
Cornell Botanic Gardens plays a large role in developing, implementing, and studying various aspects of lethal and non-lethal deer management approaches across its 3700 acres of natural areas holdings, aimed at providing a safe, healthy, and flourishing environment.
Learn more about our the Cornell Deer Management Program.