ABSTRACT

Intensive ground-based searches for white-tailed deer carcasses were conducted in the Dart Valley/Routeburn catchments following the aerial application of 1080 (sodium fluoroacetate) cereal pellets as part of the ‘Battle for the Birds’/ Tiakina Ngā Manu predator control program in August 2014. Four 100 ha areas were searched over four days. The detection rate of simulated carcasses allowed an estimation of the success rate for finding deer carcasses. All white-tailed deer carcasses located were confirmed to have muscle tissue containing traces of 1080 (range: 0.41–1.06 mg/kg). The detection rate of simulated carcasses was 78% (312/400). The adjusted number of dead white-tailed deer was 3.85 ± 0.85 (95% CI) over the 400 ha (0.96 deer/km²) suggesting a potential mortality of 146 ± 32 (95% CI) white-tailed deer in the predator control area of 15,215 ha. These results suggest that recurrent predator control operations may have implications for sustainable hunting of white-tailed deer.

摘要

作为“鸟类之战”/Tiakina Ngā Manu 捕食者控制计划的一部分，空中施用 1080（氟乙酸钠）谷物颗粒后，在 Dart Valley/Routeburn 集水区对白尾鹿尸体进行了密集的地面搜索。 2014 年 8 月。四天内搜索了四个 100 公顷的区域。模拟尸体的检测率允许估计找到鹿尸体的成功率。所有找到的白尾鹿尸体都被证实肌肉组织中含有微量 1080（范围：0.41-1.06 毫克/公斤）。模拟尸体的检出率为78%（312/400）。在 400 公顷（0.96 头鹿/km ²) 表明在 15,215 公顷的捕食者控制区中，白尾鹿的潜在死亡率为 146 ± 32 (95% CI)。这些结果表明，经常性的捕食者控制操作可能对白尾鹿的可持续狩猎产生影响。