Marrow fat content, sex and age of red deer killed by wolves in winter in the Carpathian Mountains

Age, sex and legbone marrow fat content of 90 red deer Cervus elaphus killed by wolves Canis lupus in winter in southeastern Poland were examined 1984–1988. The majority of kills were calves (44%) and hinds (40%); stags formed only 16%. The average age of hinds was 7.2 yr compared to 5.3 yr in stags...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecography
Main Author: Okarma, Henryk
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Wiley 1991
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0587.1991.tb00649.x
https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1600-0587.1991.tb00649.x
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1600-0587.1991.tb00649.x
Description
Summary:Age, sex and legbone marrow fat content of 90 red deer Cervus elaphus killed by wolves Canis lupus in winter in southeastern Poland were examined 1984–1988. The majority of kills were calves (44%) and hinds (40%); stags formed only 16%. The average age of hinds was 7.2 yr compared to 5.3 yr in stags. Animals older than 10 yr comprised only 13% of prey. Adults showed high femoral fat content (> 80%) throughout the winter (76% in early winter and 52% in late winter). Among calves femur marrow fat varied through the winter. In early winter 70% of calves had a high fat content (> 80%), though by late winter only 20% had such a high fat content, whilst 43% had low fat content (< 20%).