In alcuni boschi del Regno Unito, ogni giovane albero è morto. Cosa sta andando storto?

To answer the question: it’s deer.

Other issues make it worse but deer strip bark from saplings and eat them. *We have too many deer.* We *need* to shoot them, ideally for food to avoid it going to waste, but especially the introduced species like fallow and muntjac as the native ecosystem isn’t adapted to them.

Even red and roe deer have no natural predators left in the UK except man since wolves and bears have been extirpated, so they just breed out of control and eat whatever they come across.

I’ve personally seen a horde of deer on the edge of one of the woods around Birmingham eat all the saplings that I’d seen planted about a month previously when I was last there. They’re a menace.

I’m confused as this isn’t new information.

In a natural woodland, one that isn’t being artificially planted and managed, the germination rate of a tree seed to a sapling is low, depending on the tree species between 5%-30%.

From those saplings, less than 5% will make it to me mature enough to produced their own seeds.

That excludes seasons were the weather causes increased failure rates such as too much rain, too little rain or storms etc.

Once you add in an over population of animals like rabbits and deer’s that are mostly unchecked due to a lack of predators, it’s no surprise at all.