The young shoots from sprouting species are more palatable and plentiful than old plant material and thus deer populations rise. Similarly, fruit growers in Lake County, California, were able to move deer out of their pear orchards by burning the chaparral adjacent to their property. Burning can be overdone. Fires in chaparral should not occur more often than 15 years or the nonsprouting shrubs will gradually disappear. On winter ranges in the West, big sagebrush, curlleaf mahogany, and antelope bitterbrush can be killed by fire.
Fire creates edge to provide more feeding areas as well as adequate cover.
In western Montana, it was found that the optimum size opening in timbered areas for mule deer was 60 acres. Use of openings leveled off after vegetation reached 3 ft. Thus cleaning up dead debris by burning would enhance use of openings by mule deer when vegetation height exceed 1 ft. The increased abundance of succulent shoots of shrubs following burns will allow ovulation rates and weights of deer to increase. The ovulation rate on adult black-tailed does was 175 percent in opened brush and only 82 percent in untreated brush.