adult mortality was increasing because of deficiencies in the 

 quantity of deer forage on the area. Thus, further reduction 

 in deer numbers by continued heavy hunting (as occurred during 

 1972-74) should have improved forage conditions at least on a 

 per capita basis and resulted in compensatory increases in 

 recruitment and decreased natural mortality. Our data 

 indicate that neither occurred to a significant degree; rather 

 hunting mortality was mostly additive to other mortality, and 

 served to further reduce the population. 



Although predation rates were generally low for adult 

 females, predation was the second most common cause of 

 mortality for adult females. Most coyote predation on adult 

 females occurred during winter and spring; though at least 

 some occurred during summer and autumn. Over-winter mortality 

 for adult females, from all sources, was usually less than 

 10%, exceeding that level only during 1971-72 (24.8%) and 

 1975-76 (11.3%). Even if all winter mortality was the result 

 of coyote predation, its impact normally would be relatively 

 low. However, over-winter mortality and predation rates of 

 more than 5% on adult females, although by itself not of great 

 impact, indicated that mortality and predation rates for fawns 

 were usually high and that recruitment would be low. 



Adult females in both relatively good and relatively poor 

 condition were killed by coyotes. Those in poor condition may 

 have died in the absence of coyote predation and their loss 

 may have substituted for other mortality. Most of the adult 

 females killed by coyotes during 1975-80 were in relatively 

 good condition. They probably would not have died in the 

 absence of coyote predation and their deaths probably helped 

 contribute to the low, stable populations of the mid-late 

 1970s. They were certainly in better condition than many 

 females that survived winters 1983-84 and 1984-85. 



Both hunting mortality and coyote predation reduced the 

 numbers of adult females, but, during most years, hunting had 

 a greater numerical impact than coyote predation. During 

 years that harvests of antlerless deer were legal, hunting 

 usually removed at least twice and occasionally up to 5 times 

 as many adult females from the population as other sources of 

 mortality. The effect of varying levels of adult female 

 mortality on population numbers depended upon fawn mortality 

 and recruitment rates. Even relatively low mortality rates 

 for adult females contributed to declining or stable 

 populations when recruitment rates were as low as or lower 

 than female mortality rates. 



During 1972-1977, because of very low recruitment of 

 fawns (15-55 yearling females/year), even relatively low 

 coyote predation rates on adult females contributed 

 significantly to declining or stable populations. This was 



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