Our data indicated that natural mortality and fawn 

 production of adult females not only varied by age among 

 individuals, but also varied across the area depending upon 

 the specific strategy of habitat use by deer or location and 

 characteristics of habitat within each home range. Areas with 

 low topographic relief did not provide good survival habitat 

 for mule deer across the observed range of environmental 

 variability. Deer could survive and reproduce well on these 

 areas during favorable periods but were more vulnerable to 

 mortality during dry years or cold winters with deep snow. 



We also suspected that hunting mortality might be higher 

 for females occupying more open, low relief terrain, but 

 apparently that was not the case. Mortality rate of females 

 owing to hunting was not significantly different among the 3 

 home range categories (X 2 =1.27, P=0.54, df = 2). The fact 

 that we did not find that females in the more open, low relief 

 areas more vulnerable to hunting may be related to the 

 coincident lower accessibility of those areas. Most of the 

 broad areas of low relief occurred in the southwestern and 

 southcentral portions of the area, relatively distant from 

 major roads. Access roads crossed large areas of habitat 

 unsuitable for deer before reaching hunting areas . Hunters 

 often bypassed open, low relief areas, preferring to travel on 

 major trails until more typical deer habitat was reached. 

 Thus, a substantial portion of low relief terrain received 

 only minor hunting pressure. Our data did not allow us to 

 determine if more deer were shot in low relief portions of 

 generally high relief areas. 



Comparative Effects of Hunting on Females and Males 



Because of the normally lower proportion of males than 

 females in the adult population, total numbers of males are 

 lower than those of females and hunting mortality can have a 

 different effect on male and female populations. Hunting of 

 males occurred annually, so natural mortality rate for males 

 in its absence remains unknown. If, in the absence of 

 hunting, the natural mortality rate of males is higher than 

 for females as observed by others (Martinka 1978, Gavin et al . 

 1984, Kie and White 1985), it may not be possible to maintain 

 adult sex ratios much higher than 40-60 males: 100 females. 

 Based on our data, it should be possible to maintain post- 

 season ratios of 20-35 adult males: 100 adult females during 

 most years without restricting the number of people hunting 

 males. If hunting pressure increases, however, this 

 expectation may be unrealistic. Following years of unusually 

 poor fawn recruitment, unrestricted hunting of males resulted 

 in post-season ratios of less than 20 males: 100 females. 



Past regulations have allowed hunters to select heavily 

 for adult males, which were harvested at a rate 3-4 times 



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