Table 3.—Sex ratios of wolf-killed deer from wilderness areas and from hunted areas
| Age | Wilderness area | Hunted area | Total | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Percent male | Percent female | Number | Percent male | Percent female | Number | Percent male | Percent female | |
| Fawns | 4 | 0 | 100 | 18 | 50 | 50 | 22 | 41 | 59 |
| Adults | 41 | 71 | 29 | 64 | 44 | 56 | 105 | 56 | 44 |
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 9½ years old, but the oldest wolf-killed deer was 14½ ([fig. 7]).
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
| Age (years) | Wolf-killed deer | Hunter-killed deer | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of: | Percent | Number of: | Percent | |||||||
| Males | Females | Unknown | Total | Males | Females | Unknown | Total | |||
| Fawns | 9 | 13 | 2 | 24 | 17 | 54 | 54 | 4 | 112 | 26 |
| 1+ | 5 | 7 | 1 | 13 | 9 | 63 | 26 | 1 | 90 | 21 |
| 2+ | 3 | 8 | 5 | 16 | 11 | 42 | 19 | 2 | 63 | 15 |
| 3+ | 2 | 4 | 2 | 8 | 6 | 47 | 16 | 1 | 64 | 15 |
| 4+ | 6 | 3 | 4 | 13 | 9 | 32 | 22 | 1 | 55 | 13 |
| 5+ | 12 | 9 | — | 21 | 15 | 15 | 12 | 1 | 28 | 6 |
| 6+ | 9 | 2 | 1 | 12 | 8 | 3 | — | — | 3 | — |
| 7+ | 12 | 4 | — | 16 | 11 | 7 | 4 | — | 11 | 3 |
| 8+ | 4 | 2 | — | 6 | 4 | 5 | 1 | — | 6 | 1 |
| 9+ | 4 | 2 | — | 6 | 4 | 1 | — | — | 1 | — |
| 10+ | — | 3 | — | 3 | 2 | — | — | — | — | — |
| 11+ | — | 1 | — | 1 | } 4 | — | — | — | — | — |
| 12+ | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| 13+ | — | 1 | — | 1 | — | — | — | — | — | |
| 14+ | — | 2 | — | 2 | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Total | 66 | 61 | 15 | 142 | 100 | 269 | 154 | 10 | 433 | 100 |