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Hungry Deer May Be Changing How Things Sound In The Forest

Sound travels differently through open fields than the woods. When deer eat up bushes, small trees and other forest plants, it affects the transmission of bird calls and other natural sounds.

Hungry deer in the northeastern U. S. are likely changing the acoustics of their forests by eating up bushes, small trees and other leafy plants that normally would affect the transmission of natural sounds such as bird calls.

"The deer are very, very over abundant," says , an ecologist at Vassar College who studies how the environment shapes animals' senses. "It's much lusher when there are fewer deer around, and so that's a in the structure of the environment."

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