Estimating body mass of Florida white-tailed deer from standard age and morphometric measurements
Tad M. Bartareau
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, 298 Sabal Palm Road, Naples, FL 34114, USA. Present address: 423 Ibis Way, Naples, FL 34110, USA. Email: tad.bartareau@yahoo.com
Wildlife Research 46(4) 334-342 https://doi.org/10.1071/WR18142
Submitted: 13 September 2018 Accepted: 26 March 2019 Published: 13 June 2019
Abstract
Context: Measuring a mammal’s body mass has importance in understanding nutritional condition, reproductive biology and ecology. It can be impractical for a researcher to measure the body mass when equipment needed to weigh individuals is inadequate or unavailable.
Aims: The purpose of this study was to develop a model to accurately estimate the body mass of hunter-harvested Florida white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus osceola, Odocoileus virginianus seminolus) based on the relationship between scale mass, sex and standard age and morphometric measurement predictor variables easily obtainable in the field.
Methods: An information-theoretic approach was used to evaluate simple and multiple linear regression models with 67% of the data, and the best model in the set was validated using the remaining 33%.
Key results: Chest girth was the best single predictor of body mass. A global model including sex, age, age2 and body length variables was better supported than chest girth alone, and subspecies information did not contribute significantly to the body-mass–predictor-variable relationship. The best model explained 98.5% of the variation in body mass as follows: body mass (kg) = –18.41 + 6.53 × sex (0 = female, 1 = male) + 5.04 × age (year) – 0.49 × age2 (year2) + 4.76 × 10−3 × chest girth2 (cm2) + 0.12 × body length (cm). The 95% confidence interval on the bias of the estimated body mass of the best model was –0.50 to 0.59 kg. The difference between estimated and scale body mass was –0.04 kg ± 0.28 (s.e.).
Conclusions: Individuals maintained a similar proportion of body mass to predictor variables, and differences between the observed and estimated body mass of model applied to the validation dataset were not significant.
Implications: The validated body-mass-estimation model presented will enable accurate estimates of the body mass of white-tailed deer in cases where standard age and morphometric measurements are available, but the individuals were not weighed. These results provide a basis to formulate and parameterise body-mass-estimation models for other white-tailed deer subspecies and populations. Without the need for specialised equipment, the body-mass-estimation model can be used by personnel involved in white-tailed deer research, management and sport hunting to assess trends in individual and population health in support of this species’ conservation. Photograph by Carlton Ward Jr.
Additional keywords: body mass, Florida white-tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus osceola, Odocoileus virginianus seminolus, predictive model.
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