How Accurate is This?
Whitetail Deer
Compared to sending a tooth in for the annuli test ?
Everyone already knows you just count the points then divide by two!!! Or was it multiply by the square root then round up? Ask Pat some guys gave him the skinny on that at dinner the other night.
To answer your question: Not very. The best jawbone aging (tooth wear) can do is give a good guess.
Is this supposed to mean the deer get a new molar every year?
I've not ever heard that...I think I'll do some research
Cementum annuli is more accurate if you want exact age. If you are just looking for approximate age classes (say for record keeping at a hunt club) then jawbone aging is sufficient.
Lee
You can determine whether they are fawn, yearling, or adult with nearly 100% accuracy. After that is is merely a guess based on the amount of wear.
I think with enough experience, you can take that spectrum from young adult (2.5) to old geezer (8.5+?), and make a reasonable guess as to which 1/3 of that spectrum that jaw fits. It stands to reason that the older the deer gets, the wilder your guess becomes also. But to discern the difference between, say, a 4.5 and 5.5 year old, like the QDMA guide asserts, now come on, that's blowing smoke up my butt.
I read somewhere that cementum annuli is about 85% accurate, so it is worth noting that isn't 100% either, but it has been studied to be significantly more accurate.
Did it for many years and it's an accurate method to 3 1/2 then geographical differences in forage/browse and individual diet simply made above 4 1/2 very difficult.
Basal mass circumference in our data was almost as accurate.
With the tech of today if you want to know past 3 1/2 mail it in.
On a Camp Ripley hunt decades ago my hunting buddy shot a decent doe. Very healthy animal. One of the biologists at the gate asked if he could age it by looking at the jaw bone. Took a look, brought others over, "hey you wanna look at this.." The lower jawbone molars were ground down to nothing, estimated to be a great, great, grandma deer maybe 8-10 years old or more. Still have the pic some place.
