奈良公園のニホンジカCervus nipponは母ジカ以外からも哺乳するか

概要

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Sika deer Cervus nippon breed a fawn from the end of May to the beginning of July. In Nara Park, 200 fawns are born every year. The Nara Deer Preservation Foundation is rearing a number of female and fawn of sika deer, in the animal shelter, Roku-en in Nara Park, during both fawning and nursing season. In the current study, observations on fawns and females were carried out in Roku-en by comparing with surrounding areas, which revealed the following things. 1) A fawn was suckled by plural number of females. 2) The average number of suckling females per fawn was increased, therefore increasing the number of fawn in Roku-en. 3) While, both 1) and 2) were not observed surrounding areas of Roku-en. There was no signifi cant difference in the average of suckling time per fawn between the suckling from one female and the suckling from plural number of females in Roku-en, that is, one fawn was suckled by not only its mother but also the other mothers. It is noteworthy that, when a phonation arose from an adjacent fawn, plural number of females started suckling or grooming. The population density in Roku-en was 470 times higher than that of outside, thus, a number of mother and fawn groups existed very close to each other in Roku-en. In such high population density in Roku-en, it could be possible that both fawn and its mother cannot identify each other.