yearling males, and the lack of density relationships 

 involving antler size also supported that interpretation. All 

 of this indicated that fawn survival/mortality was 

 functionally determined by factors influencing forage quality 

 and the physical condition of deer during fawning and 

 fawn-rearing. 



How does the relationship between forage quality and fawn 

 survival to winter reconcile with the fact that 85% of the 

 summer-fall mortality resulted from predation? Were, as some 

 other studies suggest, deer in poorer condition and more 

 susceptible to predation when forage quality was low? 

 Although there may be basis for such supposition, our data 

 indicated that the relationship between deer condition, coyote 

 predation, and fawn survival was not simply one of cause and 

 effect, especially for young fawns. 



Regular observations of fawns during summer, including 

 those killed by coyotes, indicated that few, if any were in 

 obviously poor condition. The only exception occurred in 

 1984, when several fawns, including 2 abandoned by their dams, 

 appeared to be in relatively poor condition at the time of 

 capture. Most other radio-collared fawns killed by coyotes 

 appeared in sufficiently good condition to have survived in 

 the absence of predation; all were active and playful in 

 interactions with each other and their mother when last 

 observed. Moreover, measurements and general observations of 

 deer condition during the years 1973-1977, when fawn mortality 

 was consistently high, indicated that all deer were in at 

 least average, and probably excellent physical condition. 

 They certainly were in better condition during those years 

 than during 1984 and 1985 when some reduction in reproductive 

 effort occurred. 



Although no experiments involving coyote control were 

 conducted on our study area in recent years, studies in other 

 western states during the 1970s (Beasom 1974, Kie et al. 1979, 

 Smith and LeCount 1979, Stout 1982) indicated that predator 

 control increased fawn survival or that fawn survival was 

 higher in predator-free exclosures than in adjacent areas. 

 Such results implied that coyotes killed fawns that were 

 healthy enough to survive in the absence of predation. 



We noted earlier (Chapter 3) that coyote control efforts 

 on our study area during the 1950s may have influenced the 

 high fawn survival that occurred even during years of poor 

 forage conditions. Similarly, circumstantial evidence from 

 the Sage Creek area, about 96 km southwest of our study area, 

 indicated that fawn survival might have been higher in the 

 absence of coyote predation during the mid-to-late 1970s. 

 There, poor fawn survival and a population decline similar to 

 that on our study area also occurred during and following the 



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