Adaptive management of sika deer populations in Hokkaido, Japan: theory and practice

作者：Koichi Kaji, Takashi Saitoh, Hiroyuki Uno, Hiroyuki Matsuda, Kohji Yamamura · 发表于：Population Ecology · 年份：2010 · DOI：10.1007/s10144-010-0219-4 · 被引用次数：118 · 研究领域：Wildlife Ecology and Conservation、Ecology and biodiversity studies、Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology

Abstract We investigated the utility of adaptive management (AM) in wildlife management, reviewing our experiences in applying AM to overabundant sika deer (Cervus nippon) populations in Hokkaido, Japan. The management goals of our program were: (1) to maintain the population at moderate density levels preventing population irruption, (2) to reduce damage to crops and forests, and (3) to sustain a moderate yield of hunting without endangering the population. Because of significant uncertainty in biological and environmental parameters, we designed a “feedback” management program based on controlling hunting pressure. Three threshold levels of relative population size and four levels of hunting pressure were configured, with a choice of four corresponding management actions. Under this program, the Hokkaido Government has been promoting aggressive female culling to reduce the sika deer population since 1998. We devised a harvest‐based estimation for population size using relative population size and the number of deer harvested, and found that the 1993 population size (originally estimated by extrapolation of aerial surveys) had been underestimated. To reduce observation errors, a harvest‐based Bayesian estimation was developed and the 1993 population estimate was again revised. Analyses of population trends and harvest data demonstrate that hunting is an important large‐scale experiment to obtain reliable estimation of population size. A serious side effect of hunting on sika...