Deer Deer Me
Overview
Objectives/Goals To find deer population in Anderson Valley. Methods/Materials 1. To sample randomly throw a rock. 2. Two students pull string taut. 3. Students walk in circle, while keeping taut. Count the pellet groups in the plot. 4. Do another transect at the same site. Record the information. 5. The area of the circular plot is .01 acres we sampled X=plots. Example: .01x20=.2. 6. How many fecal pellet groups counted by group? 7. We must now convert the number of fecal pellet groups found on Internet Example: .2 acres to the number found on one acre. Example: (Total pellet groups or) 100/ .2=800/1.0=(total acreage sampled). 8. Deer defecate 13 times a day, so divide 13 into the total pellet groups per acre to find (deer days) use per acre. 9. We are trying to calculate the number of deer per square mile. There are 640 acres in a square mile. 10. Because there are 365 days in a year# Example: 365/24960.00=68.38 or 69 deer per sq. mile. Results We took 20 transects or plots. .01x20=. 2 acres (A circular transect is .01 acres.) We found 35 fresh pellet groups. We must change .2 acres into 1 acre. 35 fresh pellet groups divided by .2 acres equals 175 fresh pellet groups over 1 acre. Deer defecate about 13 times a day 175/13=13.46 round up. There are 640 acres in a sq. mi.14x640=8960 "Deer days use per sq. mi. in Anderson Valley" There are 365 days in a year. 8960/365=24.54 round up to 25 deer per sq. mi. We estimate there are about 25 deer per sq. mi. in Anderson Valley. In Price County there were estimated to be 17-25 deer per square mile. Conclusions/Discussion Our hypothesis was that we believed that there would be about 10 deer per sq. mi. We thought this because deer are very territorial and are usually seen in groups of ten. Our results were 25 deer per sq. mi. We got our hypothesis wrong because we were thinking that there would be 1 group per sq. mi. There really are about two groups of deer per sq. mi.
Summary statement
We estimated deer population using circle transect plots and fecal pellet counts.
Help received
Our parents provided transportion to project site.
Competition history
- CSEF 2002
Resources
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