Wow, just wow.
I was just involved in a public information meeting for a timber sale I am overseeing on town owned land. I was hired by the town to make the sale happen. Anyway, this one woman asked me what we were going to do about all the branches that are left on the ground from the cutting. I told her that the contract requirements stated that all of the slash had to be whittled down as close to ground level as was possible so as to make the slash decompose that much quicker. She looked at me with fear in her eyes and said if you leave those branches lying on the ground like that the deer will break their ankles on it. She was dead serious.
I told her if she wanted to help the situation she was welcome to go in after we were done and pile all that slash in piles and that by doing so she would be helping wildlife habitat in that area. How so, she asks. Well, I said, brush piles are great habitat for mice, rabbit and snakes and such and the owls and hawks just love to perch on a tree above these piles and wait for dinner. She didn't really like that suggestion either.