When we’re looking at creating a property that can produce a high amount of wild calories per acre, we’re mainly focusing on wild meat production. This is because I believe when it comes to wild food, meat is king. It is pretty clear that most hunter gatherers in temperate and boreal regions subsisted largely on wild meat sources. There just isn’t many wild plants that will grow naturally without human intervention and also be able to provide a high calorie per acre return as a staple food source. There are a few and usually these plant species also make amazing food sources for wildlife as well, so we’ll end up talking about them anyways, but for the most part this blog will focus on a wild meat based system. A byproduct of focusing on creating optimal wild game habitat is that many of the food plants we plant for wildlife are also highly palatable for people as well. Alternatively, I believe, if we focused mainly on edible plants for humans then we would not be making the most optimal habitat for wild game.
Okay, so let’s say you’ve just bought your property. The first step in deciding how to manage it for wild game is to determine what species are located in your area. When looking at creating a property with a high calorie per acre for meat we will want to focus on larger game species that are able to live in high densities. Some animals like rabbits are able to live in pretty high densities, but rabbits are also pretty small so I would generally not recommend focusing on them as a staple food source. Other game species are pretty large such as black bears, but generally they live in pretty low densities so they would make a poor species to focus on as well. Animals that are both large and live at fairly high densities, such as white-tailed deer are the types we will mainly focus on because they have the potential to exist at the highest calories per acre. Other animals that could fall into this category are feral pigs, moose, elk and even beaver under the right conditions. However, in most areas of the U.S. white-tailed deer will be the best species to focus on.
Once you’ve figured out the best game species in your area to focus on it’s time to determine what would constitute the most optimal habitat. For example, for deer, the best habitat would include excellent food, cover and water sources. Whitetails are mainly browsers meaning they eat the leaves, stems, buds and fruit of woody plants. Deer also eat grasses, forbs, nuts and fruit as well as agricultural crops. Whitetails also require dense heavy cover to escape predators and feel safe. One great thing about managing for deer is that the cover can sometimes double as food. This will help to increase the carrying capacity of the land because the deer will not have to travel as far to meet all of their needs. Some plant species that can provide both dense cover and food are wild roses, brambles and hazelnut shrubs. For deer I would say that plants that double as food and cover should provide the bulk of the the habitat. Interspersed through the dense brush, however should be planted fruit and nut trees such as apples, pears, oaks, chestnuts and other mast producing species. These trees should generally be few and far between because while they provide a valuable food source for part of the year, they also cast shade and will prevent other plants from growing at the level where deer can reach them. Lastly for food I would keep small patches of ground open and planted with nutritious forbs and grass species such as clover. These areas would not be very large and they would keep the deer well hidden between the thicker brush areas while providing nutritious forage. Most game species need a diversity of plants species to feed on and by providing many different food sources we can create excellent habitat.
If an area was planted like this and with species that were able to self regenerate in that specific climate then this type of habitat could potentially last for hundreds of years without hardly any human intervention. The only thing that would be needed to maintain it would be some disturbances every once in awhile with either fire or brush clearing, so that it would not succeed into a closed forest ecosystem. Once established the habitat would be largely self sustaining and would likely hold very high deer densities and could provide practically free venison for perpetuity. And what is great for deer would likely be great for many other species such as turkeys and black bears. And better yet one would also be able to forage for many of the fruit and nut species. For most vegetables, however, a small fenced in garden would likely still be a better choice.
This is the basic idea for my wild food systems. While my example mostly focused on white-tailed deer, there are many other species that this system could be designed for. One just has to do their research and figure out what the game species in their area require.
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