The importance of the information in Figure 6 . 5 is not in 

 its precision, but that it can provide early insight to the 

 likely effect of hunting regulations in a given year. If the 

 goal is for the female population to increase, stay the same, 

 or decrease and the fawn recruitment rate is known, the 

 general level of antlerless tags, if any, necessary to achieve 

 the objective can be estimated. It is also possible to 

 determine when the male population is likely to decline, given 

 general hunting of males. To keep the male population from 

 declining or raise the male: female ratio, harvest of males may 

 have to be restricted during some years of low recruitment. 



Overall, allowable harvest rates for females, in the 

 absence of compensatory reproduction and mortality, are 

 generally lower than previously believed. Also, in most 

 areas, we are either harvesting males at higher rates or total 

 male mortality from all causes is higher than previously 

 believed. The mule deer herd at Sage Creek in central 

 Montana, for example, is characterized by recruitment 

 generally greater than 50 fawns: 100 females and post-season 

 adult male: female ratios of 10:100 or less. This indicates 

 that total annual loss of males to the population is usually 

 70-80%. Although it is probable that much of that mortality 

 results from hunting, it also is possible that net emigration 

 of yearling males from that open habitat contributes to high 

 annual loss of males. 



175 



