Figure 1.
Mean (± SE) estimated bi-monthly harvests of sambar deer in Victoria, south-eastern Australia, 2009−2013.
Data are summarised from references 54−58.
Figure 2.
Location of the study in the North East region of Victoria, south-eastern Australia.
Red squares indicate the location of sambar deer carcasses along the six transects. The ‘×’ in the inset indicates the location of the Upper Yarra Ranges National Park, where carcasses were obtained.
Figure 3.
Carnivores feeding on sambar deer carcasses.
(a) Wild dog; (b) fox; (c) feral cat. Note the second camera trap on the tree in the background of (a).
Figure 4.
Visits and behaviours of wild dogs, foxes and feral cats at sambar deer carcasses
. Behaviours are defined in Materials and Methods.
Figure 5.
Daily activity patterns of wild dogs and foxes at sambar deer carcasses.
(a) Mean total daily activity by wild dogs and foxes, with the inner and outer circles indicating 5 and 10 minutes, respectively. (b) Feeding, investigating and moving through behaviours of wild dogs, with the inner and outer circles indicating 5% and 10% of time, respectively. (c) Feeding, investigating and moving through behaviours of foxes, with the inner and outer circles indicating 5% and 10% of time, respectively.
Figure 6.
Seasonal relationship between days to first carcass visit by wild dogs and distance to farm.
Medians and 95% highest posterior density interval bounds are shown for the winter and spring seasons.
Table 1.
Parameter estimates (and 95% credible intervals) from the model of days to first carcass visit by wild dogs.
Table 2.
Parameter estimates (and 95% credible intervals) from the model of days to first carcass visit by foxes.
Figure 7.
Expected daily probability of a wild dog visiting a sambar deer carcass.
Probabilities are medians from the posterior distribution with average edible biomass.
Figure 8.
Expected daily probability of a wild dog visiting a carcass as a function of edible biomass.
Expected probabilities are medians from the posterior distribution at a carcass 2/or fox.
Table 3.
Parameter estimates for the discrete-time Markov models of wild dog presence at a sambar deer carcass during a 24-h period.
Figure 9.
Expected daily probability of a fox visiting a carcass as a function of distance to farm.
Expected probabilities are medians from the posterior distribution with average edible biomass and are shown for all combinations of season and the previous presence of wild dog and/or fox.
Figure 10.
Expected daily probability of a fox visiting a carcass as a function of edible biomass.
Expected probabilities are medians from the posterior distribution at a carcass 2/or fox.
Table 4.
Parameter estimates for the discrete-time Markov models of fox presence at a sambar deer carcass during a 24-h period.
Figure 11.
Temporal changes in the edible biomass of carcasses as a function of season and carnivory.
The effects of feeding by wild dogs and foxes are illustrated by including 180(136 minutes) and foxes (154 minutes) spent feeding at a carcass and enabled the effects of foxes to be visible.
Table 5.
Parameter estimates for the model of temporal change in the amount of edible biomass on sambar deer carcasses during winter and spring.