Factors Affecting White-tailed Deer Recruitment in Virginia

Deer ( Odocoileus spp.) are an important cultural and economic resource. They are the most popular game species in the United States and the number one driver of conservation funding. On the other hand, they also cause damage to resources including to the agricultural industry, private property and to humans via deer vehicle collisions. Many areas in eastern North America have experienced a decline in white-tailed deer ( Odocoileus virginianus ) populations over the past twenty years concurrent with changes in landscape, deer harvest strategies, and increasing and expanding black bear ( Ursus americanus ) and coyote ( Canis latrans ) populations. Most studies have addressed this problem at small spatial and temporal scales and in areas where predation was assumed to be limiting population growth. We evaluated white-tailed deer fawn recruitment both directly and indirectly at relatively broader spatial and temporal scales. We studied fawn survival on Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, USA from 20082019. We used the Kaplan-Meier estimator, and Cox-proportional hazards models to assess annual survival and factors that influence hazard risk such as sex, weather, landscape composition and configuration and food availability. On Marine Corps Base Quantico, we found an increase in red oak mast abundance increases survival and probability of fawn survival was higher during the first interval of the study (20082010; 0.71 [0.520.96]; survival probability [CI95%]) than the last three intervals (20112013; 0.46 [0.300.70]; 20142016; 0.48 [0.350.66] and 20172019; 0.50 [0.390.63]). We also found that predation was the leading source of mortality. We assessed recruitment using lactation status from hunter harvest data collected by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries during a 22-year period in 30 counties in the Appalachian Mountains of western Virginia. We predicted lactation status as a function of landscape composition and configuration, oak mast abundance, weather, age, and predator detection rates ...