How will the small crop of acorns affect wildlife in md and va and what caused shortfall?

Interesting question. Just the opposite has happened here in Northeast PA the past two years. We had a very good crop this year and an even better one in 2007.





The bunker 2007 crop, plus late warm periods in November really gave the deer time to bulk up, same thing for most wildlife. In 2008 we had an extremely high amount of deer ticks in the woods during the spring. It was crazy for about 5 weeks. The added food supply really helped the wildlife maintain their numbers through the winter. My guess is that a small crop will have the opposite effects. Less deer and mice will mean less ticks.How will the small crop of acorns affect wildlife in md and va and what caused shortfall?
Wildlife biologist refer to the production of acorns, hickory nuts, walnuts, etc as mast. There are several reasons a failure can occur. Most notable are late killing frost. Other reason are insect infestations and wide spread bacterial disease. The effects of a reduction in mast can be severe. If wildlife cant compensate for the loss of calories usually consumed they may suffer hunger, bad health, communicable diseases and death. It appears these mast failures maybe increasing in occurrence. Unfortunately historical data for this phenomena does not exist. Hopefully the following seasons will see a rebound in mast production.





http://www.nbii.gov/portal/server.pt?ope鈥?/a>