| Fig. 5. Mountain lions in Idaho tended to kill more young and old deer, and wolves in Manitoba tended to kill more young and old elk, than they killed prey of prime breeding age. In contrast, humans hunting deer and elk nearby and at the same time tended to kill middle-aged individuals. Consequently, humans usually did not exact a harvest in which the mortality merely substituted for that which might occur naturally. Instead, humans altered the diversity of individuals of different ages within the prey populations differently than did the other predators. | |
