A unit of Lasting Forests
Sustained forests; sustained profits
evolving since March 30, 1999
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Gamma Theory
Modern Wild Faunal Resource Management
Faunal Space
Deer (as other animals) live in areas. Areas can be mapped. Areas are two-dimensional space. Deer live in an area defined by map latitude and longitude. They also live in a space between ground level and about 7 feet where they stand on their hind feet and reach for food when it has been consumed elsewhere. (They can jump a 9-foot fence but that is rare and we'll ignore it for the present purposes.) Deer live in a three-dimensional volume of latitude, longitude, and height. There are more "dimensions" than the three well-recognized ones of physical space. Deer are a function of, related to, influenced by available energy, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. These are "dimensions" - as real as a short shrub or a tall one. The easily-said phrase "provide food and cover" is a suggestion that is OK for the general public, but for the sophisticated deer hunter or outdoor enthusiast, the "cervid fan" ( the deer are in the family cervidae) the phrase is meaningless. Modern managers rarely use "habitat" because it, too, is too gross, almost meaningless. They use "faunal space", meaning the multidimensional world in which animals, any of them, live. Habitat usually means food and cover, but that includes water, boundaries, policy (for example, whether the area is protected by national park laws), dens, length of night (hours), viewing distance and other factors including some 15 essential nutritional components of "food."
"Habitat", as large as it is, is an inadequate word for what is going on in the world of the individual animal. A fawn in a bed near its mother or that same fawn in exactly the same bed if its mother is no longer present, is an animal in two entirely different conditions. A deer at the center of a herd on a wind-swept ridge on a winter day is protected from wind. The protection is the same as that provided by a dense clump of white pines. The animals themselves are habitat!
Animals live in a multi-dimensional space; they are a function of many factors. They live in faunal space. The phrase and its use will push us to analyze these factors, gain control over them, and adjust them simultaneously to achieve the full set of benefits that are potential from the animal resource. The modern advanced deer hunter or sportsperson will be notable because they will no longer talk about "habitat" and replace that limited idea with faunal space.
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Last revision January 17, 2000.