I Never Expected Wildlife To Respond This Fast

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:05]For the last 3 years, I've been slowly reclaiming this 11acre block of cedars.

[00:00:22]I expected the sunlight to return. I expected the habitat to improve. But what I didn't expect was how quickly deer and turkeys would start using these areas even before the restoration was complete. And that's what this story is about.

[00:00:48]At first glance, it looks like great cover, but the more time I spent in here, the more I realized there wasn't much diversity left.

[00:01:01]This was an 11 acre monoculture of unmanaged cedars and it used to be old pasture about 50 years ago. How do I know that? I went back on historical aerials a website and looked back over the last 50 years through the maps and you can see this was once old pasture back in the 70s and since going unmanaged this is what took over a green desert of cedars.

[00:01:32]So the problem here is not specifically the cedar it's the monoculture of cedars. I don't mind a cedar dotted, you know, here or there. Region specifically, we're here in Missouri, so a monoculture of cedars is not native.

[00:01:47]And as you can tell, there is no ground cover hardly at all where we have this monoculture of cedars. The needles from the cedars have covered most of the ground, but most importantly, there are so many cedars that they've choked out the majority of the sunlight. The lower two/irds of most of these cedars don't even have any greenery because sunlight isn't even able to reach the bottom of these trees. So, they've all grown up at the same time over the last 50 years and are competing for sunlight. Little to no sunlight reaching the floor, which means there's no plant diversity on the forest floor, which means there's hardly any cover and virtually no food, which is not good for deer or turkeys. Now, I realize some of you might be asking or wondering about thermal cover. Yes, this does have some thermal cover, but other than that, it's lacking in benefits for wildlife.

[00:02:42]So, the problem here is the monoculture of cedars. And we've since over the last 3 years started cutting down about 2/3 of this 11acre monoculture of cedars.

[00:03:00]One of the first things I learned early on with habitat work is that good habitat starts with sunlight.

[00:03:09]The first winter, my dad and I cut about 2 acres of cedars. Nothing fancy, just one tree at a time.

[00:03:27]Once the cedars were gone, sunlight finally started reaching the ground again.

[00:03:37]Looking back, that was really the beginning of everything on this project.

[00:03:46]I'm standing in the area where this project initially started. The spot where my dad and I came in two and a half years ago and began cutting cedars.

[00:03:56]And it's amazing because you can just feel it with sunlight in here. It's like the area can breathe again. And the response goes to show just how impactful that sunlight is. We've got sumac all over the place. We've got little blue stem, big blue stem, broom sedge, a lot of diversity in the grasses and a lot of native forbes coming in. Aromatic sumac, just biodiversity at its finest. And it looks phenomenal from a for a deer. I mean, they could just bet up against that sumac, see across these grasses to locate any predators that might be approaching, stand up, and they have food all over the place. Whereas before, it wasn't like that at all. The insects are in here now for turkeys. Great nesting cover. This is exactly what we wanted. And it's amazing to see what sunlight does in such a short amount of time. How much different this landscape is.

[00:05:02]The second lesson came from fire.

[00:05:05]Every year taught me something different. But first and foremost, fire is a necessity.

[00:05:11]Cutting the cedars down removed the problem. Fire restarted the process, exposed the soil, and activated the native seedbank.

[00:05:21]The first year, the cedars consumed very well in the fire. The second year, I got a little later start and ended up burning in May and June. The cedars didn't consume nearly as well. But then this last year, everything came together.

[00:06:06]This is crazy.

[00:06:08]It was once a dark forest of cedars and now it's wide open.

[00:06:15]I mean, it was throwing like 60 70 foot flames at least out of here. It was insane.

[00:06:22]Totally different landscape.

[00:06:24]In a few months, we'll be able to see uh what comes back in. I don't know, though. The soil might stay a little bit dormant for a while with that type of burn, but pretty awesome.

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[00:07:06]This year's fire left the soil a little more sterile compared to years past.

[00:07:12]The area looks a little rough in a lot of places, but I've learned habitat takes time to respond.

[00:07:24]There isn't a lot of vegetation here yet, but I expected that given the fact that I've done this the last few years.

[00:07:30]I knew what to expect. But what we are seeing is pretty phenomenal. We've already got aromatic sumac coming in.

[00:07:37]See some ragweed.

[00:07:39]Some of these oaks that were damaged are throwing shoots out at the bases. These shoots are high in nutrients, so the deer are feeding on them. There's some grasses on the hill already coming in thick. And it's just amazing to see the response. There's a few wild flowers speckled throughout here. But the biggest surprise of all this is when I pulled my trail camera card. To see what wildlife was already using this is simply amazing. I I hadn't done that in any of these areas before. So, it's very neat to see.

[00:08:47]I think sometimes we assume habitat has to look perfect before wildlife starts using it, but that's not what I've seen here.

[00:08:57]Deer and turkeys recognize these changes almost immediately.

[00:09:02]So, the main question that comes to mind, why is this happening? Why is there so much wildlife using this so quickly? I honestly didn't think that would happen, but my trail camera says otherwise. And the first conclusion that I can come to is visibility and sunlight. There's a lot of sunlight hitting here, so they can come out here, be out in the sun. The deer can lay down in the sun to stay warm, or on a hot day, I noticed it was in the 80s, there were deer laying down up against these cedar stems in the dirt, and I can assume to stay cool. They have structure up against their back with the cedar stem and they can locate predators approaching because they can see across this landscape.

[00:09:45]The turkeys are in here not only to pick bugs. We saw that in one of the videos.

[00:09:49]But also gobblers can stand up on these cedar stems and look for hens. Given that it's spring, they're obviously breeding. So they're looking for hens.

[00:10:00]The hens are in here dusting. There's a dust bowl right here in front of me. And when I walked in here to check the trail camera, there was a hen here on the top of the hill right on the fringe of all this. This is great nesting cover on the fringe. There's some down cedars back here could have a nest and once that once their pts are hatched, it's great brooding cover. They can navigate through these cedars, stay dry because any heavy morning dew is not going to collect on the dirt. There's not a lot of plants to collect a lot of moisture, so they can stay dry. They can evade predators through all this. And on top of that, they can fly up into these cedar skeletons if a predator does come through here. Did get videos of predators. Got some some coyotes coming through here multiple times. In fact, one of them, I believe, was chasing a deer. So, they're using it, too. But it's just cool to see the diversity of wildlife already in here so quickly.

[00:11:07]We have 3 to 4 acres left on the cedar eradication project and it's probably some of the most dense cedars that we have of this entire unit that we've been working on. But I'm excited to work on it. I mean, I've learned so much over the last few years, whether it be fire, timing of fire, uh, chainsaw work, properly felling cedars, how to navigate through here efficiently when it comes to felling these cedars and getting them where you want them to go. And it's just amazing to see the habitat response as well each time I come in here. But the biggest surprise is those trail camera videos and seeing that like that's a huge motivating factor and just like the icing on the cake. The the fruits of our labor are actually coming together and it motivates me to get back over there and finish the rest of this out. So, thank you all again for following along.

[00:11:59]Check out these two videos over here. Uh these are the earlier phases of this project, some videos that we've posted in the past. Thank you all for watching.

[00:12:08]God bless. We'll see you on the next one.