著者
Seiki TAKATSUKI Shingo MIURA Kazuo SUZUKI Kaori ITO-SAKAMOTO
出版者
The Mammal Society of Japan
雑誌
Journal of the Mammalogical Society of Japan (ISSN:09141855)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.15, no.2, pp.91-98, 1991 (Released:2010-08-25)
参考文献数
21
被引用文献数
1

A mass mortality of sika deer (Cervus nippon) population occurred on Kinkazan Island in northern Japan in the spring of 1984, which followed an unusual cold winter. We collected a sample of 240 deer skulls. All deer were aged and sexed except some fawns. The sex ratio of >1 year old deer was 50: 50, but was skewed toward males compared with the sex ratio obtained in the population census in 1983. The oldest age at death was 12.5 years for males and 15.5 years for females. The frequency was low for young age classes. A relative cumulative frequency curve was constructed to examine the age-specific mortality pattern. The curves of both sexes suggested that mortality was relatively high for fawns and low for adult and prime-aged animals, and that mortality was higher and life span was shorter for males than for females.