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Shooting accounted for nearly all fallow deer deaths with a known cause in New South Wales

Research: Ecology · Conservation: Management

In a study of adult European fallow deer (Dama dama) in New South Wales, estimated annual survival was lower for males than for females: 53.9% compared with 78.1%. Among the deaths whose cause researchers could assign, 22 were due to shooting and one to a natural, non-human cause. The study found no evidence of predation.

The researchers fitted GPS collars to 70 deer—44 females and 26 males—and used tracking data to estimate survival and causes of death. A lost collar signal does not by itself show whether a deer has died or its collar has failed. The analysis therefore accounted for the chance of detecting an animal separately from whether it was alive or dead. Some deer were later confirmed alive in trail-camera photographs; in other cases, reports that a deer had been shot, along with its failed collar, helped establish its fate.

Estimated annual survival from natural causes alone was also higher for females than males: 98.4% compared with 93.1%, a smaller difference than in overall survival. These figures describe survival attributed to natural causes, while the overall estimates also reflect human-caused deaths. The 22 shootings and one natural death represent only deaths for which a cause could be assigned, not every death among the collared deer.

These estimates can inform models used to evaluate management options for overabundant fallow deer populations.

Sources and image credit

  1. Bayesian multi-state mark-resight modeling of survival and cause-specific mortality from telemetered individuals: European fallow deer in AustraliaPrimary journal record; the journal's Early View listing gives 28 October 2026 as the Version of Record online date. The publisher page and full text were not accessible for direct inspection. Study details in this review were checked against the abstract displayed in the secondary index at https://www.citedrive.com/en/discovery/bayesian-multistate-markresight-modeling-of-survival-and-causespecific-mortality-from-telemetered-individuals-european-fallow-deer-in-australia/.

Image: A male fallow deer (Dama dama) moves through a green grassy field with its antlers clearly visible. Photo: Johann-Nikolaus Andreae / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0. Representative photograph. · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Source

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