Abstract
Deer biologists, as with all natural resource managers, need an understanding of the abundance of the resource they are managing to make sound management decisions. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the precision of 3 techniques used to assess deer abundance. Morning-drive, evening-drive, and night-spotlight surveys were conducted each quarter on 3 National Park Service areas in Texas and New Mexico from January 1987 to March 1988. Spotlight surveys resulted in a larger number of deer seen on all 3 sites. Spotlight surveys had significantly greater precision (P = 0.002) than morning or evening surveys. Increasing the number of consecutive days the surveys were conducted beyond 3 did not significantly improve the precision of the morning surveys (P = 0.328) or the spotlight surveys (P = 0.719). When conducting transect surveys to obtain data on deer abundance, spotlight surveys conducted for 3 consecutive nights appear to give greater precision than either morning or evening surveys.
Rakestraw, Danny Lee (1995). A comparison of three deer survey techniques. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /ETD -TAMU -1995 -THESIS -R35.