Aging Live White-Tailed Deer on Southern Ranges

I captured male white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) on 2 south Texas ranches and aged them by cementum annuli in an extracted incisor and tooth replacement and wear. Precision was assessed by comparing the known interval between ages for recaptured deer to the interval determined by each aging technique. Bias was assessed by comparing the age distributions given by the methods using regression analysis. Detrimental effects of removing an incisor were assessed using radio-collared and recaptured animals. Precision of the aging techniques was equally poor. However, the cementum ages appeared less biased because they predicted a pattern of bias for wear ages equivalent to experience in the literature and gave a more realistic age distribution for the population. No detrimental effects of incisor removal were detected.