摘要 : We studied survival of elk (<i>Cervus elaphus</i>) >=1 yr old and quantified mortality sources in the Blue Mountains of Washington, 2003-2006, following a period of extensive poaching. The population was managed under a spike-only... 展开 We studied survival of elk (<i>Cervus elaphus</i>) >=1 yr old and quantified mortality sources in the Blue Mountains of Washington, 2003-2006, following a period of extensive poaching. The population was managed under a spike-only general hunting season, with limited permits for larger males and for females. We radiomarked 190 elk (82 males and 39 females >1 yr old and 65 males 11 months old), most with rumen transmitters and neck radiocollars; 60 elk only received rumen transmitters. We estimated annual survival using known fate models and explored survival differences among sex and age classes and in 2 potentially different vulnerability zones for males. We found little support for differences in survival between younger (2-3-yr old) and older (>=4-yr old) branch-antlered males or zone differences for yearling males. A model with zone differences for branch-antlered males was the second ranked model and accounted for 14% of the available model weight. From the best-supported models, we estimated annual survival for yearling males at 0.41 (95% CI: 0.29-0.53). We estimated pooled adult female survival at 0.80 (95% CI: 0.64-0.93); when an age-class effect was included, point estimates were higher for prime-aged females (2-11 yr: <i>S</i>=0.81 [0.70-0.88]) than for older females (>=12 yr: <i>S</i>=0.72 [0.56-0.83]), but confidence intervals broadly overlapped. Only 1 of 7 models with a female age effect on survival was among the competitive models. For branch-antlered males, survival ranged 0.80-0.85, depending on whether zone variation was modeled. We recorded 78 deaths of radiomarked elk. Human-caused deaths (<i>n</i>=55) predominated among causes and most were of yearling males killed during state-sanctioned hunts (<i>n</i>=28). Most subadult male deaths were from tribal hunting (<i>n</i>=5), and most mature males died from natural causes (<i>n</i>=6) and tribal hunting (<i>n</i>=5). We detected few illegal kills (<i>n</i>=4). Our results suggest that increased enforcement effectively reduced poaching, that unreported tribal harvest was not a trivial source of mortality, and that spike-only general seasons were effective in recruiting branch-antlered males.Digital Object Identifier http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.121 收起