Effect of Hunting on the Reproduction of the Sable Population
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ct of Hunting on the Reproduction of the Sable Population E. A. Dubinina, b, * and A. S. Valentsevc aInstitute
of Biological Problems of the North, Far East Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Magadan, 685000 Russia b Northeastern State University, Magadan, 685000 Russia c Pacific Institute of Geography, Kamchatka Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Far East Branch, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, 683000 Russia *e-mail: [email protected] Received December 16, 2019; revised January 21, 2020; accepted January 27, 2020
Abstract—Analysis of hunting samples of the Kamchatka sable population for 2001–2013 has revealed changes in the reproductive parameters of females over the period from 1967 to 1979. Intensive hunting has led to a simplification of the age structure of the population and a rejuvenation of its reproductive core. The proportion of 1–2-year-old individuals among the adult females is 62.3%. These individuals have also begun to perform the main function of the population reproduction: 44% of the potential population growth is provided by 1- and 2-year-old females and 41.7% by 3–5-year-old females. The proportion of females of all other ages (from 6 to 14 years) is less than 15% of the population growth. Keywords: sable, Martes zibellina, fecundity, hunting, Kamchatka Peninsula DOI: 10.1134/S1067413620040049
At the present time, the main eliminating factor for game animal populations, including sable (Martes zibellina L.), is hunting. It directly and indirectly influences birth and death processes, thereby reducing the size of populations and disturbing their sex–age structure [1–4]. The latter is determined by the selective pattern of catching separate population groups in different ways and using different hunting gears. Numerous studies in different parts of the sable species range have shown [5–10] that young of the year are mainly caught in the first half of the hunting season, while adult individuals, which make up the reproductive core of the population, are generally caught in the second half. It is this selectivity on which one of the most widespread approaches to exploiting sable populations is based, namely, the reduction of the hunting period in the second half of winter. This makes it possible to preserve individuals that are most valuable for the population reproduction and, at the same time, intensify this process [11–13]. However, when the level of the catch volume of young of the age is higher (in particular, systematically higher) than the permissible one, this approach may lead to a reduction in the abundance of the reproductive core of the population, which, in turn, will entail changes in the reproductive capacity and role of separate age groups included in this core. Thus, the potential fertility increased in Ural and Trans-Ural sable populations in 1980–1990 compared to the 1960s [14]. A similar response was
recorded for the sable population in northwestern Yakutia [15]. The main purpose of this research was to reveal possible changes in the fertility of females of different ages in the Kamchat
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