Ecological Studies of the Timber Wolf in Northeastern MinnesotaMech, L. David
Science
Ecological Studies of the Timber Wolf in Northeastern Minnesota
Mech, L. David
Deer -- Minnesota; Gray wolf -- Behavior -- Minnesota; Gray wolf -- Ecology -- Minnesota
Wolf-killed deer in our sample, with an average age of 4.7 years, were
significantly older (99 percent level) than hunter-killed deer, with an
average age of 2.6 years. For example, deer 5 years of age and older
made up 48 percent of the wolf-kills but only 10 percent of the
hunter-kills (table 4). The oldest hunter-killed deer in our sample was
9-1/2 years old, but the oldest wolf-killed deer was 14-1/2 (fig. 7).
[Illustration: _Figure 7.--Comparison between the age structures of
deer killed by wolves, deer killed by hunters, and a theoretical
population from the same general area of northeastern Minnesota_.]
Because of a possible bias against fawns in the method of collecting
data from wolf-kills (to be discussed later), the age structure of the
sample of wolf-kills excluding fawns was tested against that of the
sample of hunter-kills excluding fawns. The result once again was a
highly significant difference between these two age structures (table
1).
As an additional test of the degree to which the age structure of the
wolf-killed deer might differ from that of the actual population, we
compared our wolf-kill age structure with the age structure of a
hypothetical deer population. This was considered advisable just in
case the hunter-kill data were poorly representative of the age
structure of the actual deer herd. Several hypothetical age structures
were constructed and compared according to advice from Downing.[27]
In all cases, the comparisons produced the same basic results as the
tests with the hunter-killed sample. An example of one comparison is
given in figure 7.
A further result obtained by aging the wolf-killed deer pertained to
the young individuals killed. The deciduous first incisors of fawns and
the deciduous premolars of yearlings are usually replaced with
permanent teeth by December (Severinghaus 1949). Of 24 wolf-killed
fawns examined, however, three (13 percent) taken during January,
February, and March had not yet replaced their deciduous first
incisors. Of the 13 yearlings found during this same period, nine (70
percent) had failed to replace their deciduous premolars, and two (15
percent) had just replaced them (one deer killed in February and one
killed in March).
FOOTNOTES:
[27] _R. L. Downing. Personal correspondence to L. D. Mech, October 2,
1969_.
_Table 4.--Age and sex distribution of deer killed by wolves
and hunters in northeastern Minnesota_
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