It appears from Table No. 6 that mortality up to about 20J^ could 

 be considered normal. Mortality from 20^ to kO% could be considered extreme. 

 If this is true, the Massey, North Lake, Bonnechere and possibly the Squaw Lake 

 yards suffered extreme mortality last winter. The Bastedo, Madawaska, Harbum 

 and Wood Twp. yards suffered heavy mortality. The remainder of the yards in 

 which the combined survey was done were only lightly affected. Some of these 

 figures could be questioned, for example, the Bastedo yard which is based on 

 finding one deer, but the approach of combining the dead deer survey with 

 the pellet group coiints imdoubtedly gives much more meaningful figures than 

 either survey would separately. 



The influence of browse conditions on mortality is not clearly 

 evident. Since many factors combine to cause mortality, it is difficult to 

 determine the exact influence of any one. There is a tendency toward an inverse 

 relationship between the number of stems available per deer and the percent 

 of mortality that occurred. However, due to the fact that the quality of the 

 food and the effect of snow depths must be considered along with the mere 

 quantity of browse, the assessment of these factors must await a future report. 

 Significance to Hunters 



Although it is always difficult to predict hunting success because 

 of the very important effects of weather during the hunting season, it is 

 possible to draw some conclusions from these surveys. If average weather 

 prevails, most of the deer range south of the French and Mattawa Rivers should 

 experience a normal hunt this fall. The losses of deer In occasional yards . 

 may make hunting spotty by causir.g local shortages but the losses were not 

 heavy enough to have any appreciable effect on the overall hunter success. In 

 Pembroke District losses were high but the heaviest mortality occurred in 

 Algonquin Park. It is expected that the herds throughout the rest of the 

 district will be able to absorb the loss with only a slight reduction in hunter 

 success. 



North of the French and Mattawa Rivers conditions are different. 

 Both North Bay and Sudbury Districts experienced such heavy losses that a 

 considerable reduction in hxmter success may result. This is particularly true 

 of the northern sections of the districts. The more southern hiinting areas will 



38' 



