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← Mission 43 · White-tailed Deer Management Plan for Richmond National Battlefield Park
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Mission 43 · Richmond National Battlefield Park, VA

Richmond National Battlefield Park

The agency files it as “White-tailed Deer Management Plan for Richmond National Battlefield Park”

Closes today

Anyone can write to the agency about this until October 22, and it has to answer. What you send before then joins the file a judge is allowed to look at later.

The sentence we think is wrong

“Many of the park's forest species are stunted or absent as a result of deer overbrowse, resulting in altered plant composition”

The agency wrote that in its own document, under What is the purpose of adaptive white-tailed deer management in Richmond National Battlefield Park?. Nobody has been out to check it. A dated photograph either backs it up or ends it.

How you settle it

Walk the wooded parts of Richmond National Battlefield Park, like the Cold Harbor and Gaines Mill trails, and photograph the forest floor: young trees and shrubs under four feet, or bare ground instead. Close and wide shots showing either a stripped, open understory with a clear browse line, or thick young growth and saplings.

The decision

Richmond National Battlefield Park is developing a plan to manage its white-tailed deer population, which can overgraze vegetation and damage both natural ecosystems and historic cultural landscapes. The plan will likely evaluate options ranging from no action to lethal culling, contraception, or hazing. Visitors, neighboring communities, wildlife advocates, and hunters may all be affected by whic

Read the whole thing, and write to the agency about it

How to record it so it counts

  1. 01Photograph the stream banks where stock reach them: trampling, bare soil, slumping.
  2. 02Photograph the grass height with a pole or a tape beside it. If there is a fence with cattle on one side and none on the other, photograph both sides from the same spot.
  3. 03Photograph any water source stock use, and its condition.
  4. 04Note the date. How short the grass is means nothing without knowing the time of year.
  5. 05Write one paragraph on how this ground has looked over the years, if you have known it that long.
What would count
  • Inside versus outside a fence, same day, same scale.
  • Bank condition on a dated photo.
All of it, with the phone settings, in the field guide
Are you going?

Say yes or no. It tells the next person whether anyone has this ground covered, and it is the only way we know a request was answered rather than just read. You can change your mind any time, and nobody follows up.

Join, then say you’re going

Nobody has answered yet

Before you go
  1. Public land only. Plenty of land inside a national forest or park boundary is privately owned, and that is not yours to walk on. A gate or a closure sign means stop. Check the rules for the specific place you are going, because they differ.
  2. Don’t touch survey stakes, flagging, equipment or anything a crew left. Photograph it; leave it.
  3. Don’t approach crews, contractors or agency staff about the project. Don’t interfere with any operation.
  4. Wildlife at a distance. No drones in wilderness or anywhere they’re prohibited. Stay off closed roads and trails.
  5. If you’re not sure, don’t. Weather, terrain, water, fire and people are your call, and yours alone.

More Than Just Parks doesn’t direct where you go or what you do. Terms.