Daniel S. Coggin

Quality deer management (QDM) advocates the protection of younger-age white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) bucks, but the subsequent survival of these animals remains unknown. We conducted a study to investigate the impact and importance of harvest and non-harvest mortality factors on adult male white-tailed deer in Mississippi on areas managed under QDM. We captured 408 deer and fitted 238 adult bucks with radio collars from February 1990 until January 1997. During the study, we documented 185 mortalities, which were used to estimate survival and cause-specific mortality rates....

We used infrared-triggered cameras to estimate white-tailed deer population size. The camera estimate simplifies analysis of photographs obtained from these cameras and provides an estimate similar to that generated using the models with program CAPTURE. Four surveys of an enclosed property in northeastern Mississippi generated counts of 16, 31, 40, and 14 antlered white-tailed deer using the camera estimate at different camera densities and at different time periods. Indentifying individuals by antler characteristics and analyzing the data using program CAPTURE estimated the population of...