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VALIDITY OF PRAIRIE GROUSE HARVEST‐AGE RATIOS AS PRODUCTION INDICES
Author(s) -
FLANDERSWANNER BRIDGETTE L.,
WHITE GARY C.,
McDANIEL LEONARD L.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
the journal of wildlife management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.94
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1937-2817
pISSN - 0022-541X
DOI - 10.2193/0022-541x(2004)068[1088:vopghr]2.0.co;2
Subject(s) - grouse , galliformes , hunting season , juvenile , sex ratio , biology , geography , demography , ecology , habitat , population , sociology
The ratio of juveniles to adults in the fall harvest is a common index of production for Galliformes. The percentage of juvenile birds in the harvest has been shown to decline as the hunting season progressed for many galliforms, resulting in a biased index of production. Therefore, we used wing samples of plains sharp‐tailed grouse ( Tympanuchus phasianellus jamesi ) and greater prairie‐chickens ( T. cupido pinnatus ) from 4 public land areas in the Nebraska Sandhills, Nebraska, USA, to assess the potential for bias in harvest‐age ratios across time. We hypothesized that the ratio of juveniles to adults in the harvest could change over time if susceptibility to harvest and/or fall survival were different between the juvenile and adult prairie grouse ( Tympanuchus spp.) in the Nebraska populations. We found no change in the harvest‐age ratio over time in either the sharp‐tailed grouse or greater prairie‐chicken data. Our findings were consistent with the published literature on harvest‐age rates for sharp‐tailed grouse but inconsistent with the greater prairie‐chicken literature. Therefore, we maintain that analysis of the harvest data for bias due to a changing harvest‐age ratio as the hunting season progresses is an essential adjunct to subsequent analysis or comparisons of production indices based on harvest‐age ratios. In addition, limitations of harvest‐age ratios must be known and care must be taken to minimize other potential biases before using harvest‐age ratios as an index to production.