Regrowing a Forest

Henderson Park was selectively logged in 2005 before becoming a park. Since 2006, the Mayne Island Conservancy and the Mayne Island Parks and Recreation Commission have worked together to restore natural plant communities across Henderson Park. With the help of volunteers, hundreds of trees were planted in 2012 and 2013 to help restore the forest.

However, there are too many deer on SḴŦAḴ | Mayne Island for native plants to naturally recover from disturbances such as logging. To help the planted trees along, protective cages were added to young trees to ensure they can grow tall enough to survive on their own prevent browsing by deer and other animals. By 2020, most of the planted trees were large enough that the protective cages could be removed.

Residents of SḴŦAḴ | Mayne Island are very familiar with the “deer problem”. With an overabundance of native black tail deer due to the extirpation of large predators by early settlers on the island, and the introduction of invasive fallow deer in the 1990s, wildflower meadows, forest understories, and gardens alike struggle to grow.