Welcome to Chinese Journal of Ecology! Today is Share:

cje

Previous Articles     Next Articles

The current status and disease occurrence of captive forest musk deer (Moschus berezovskii) in Shaanxi Province.

WANG Yong-qi1, MENG Xiu-xiang2**   

  1. (1 Shaanxi Institute of Zoology, Xi’an 710032, China; 2 School of Environment and Natural Resources, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China)
  • Online:2014-10-10 Published:2014-10-10

Abstract: As an important way for exsitu conservation and musk production, musk deer (Moschus spp.) farming was initiated in China in 1958. This study focused on investigating farming pattern and disease occurrence of the main farmed deer species (i.e. forest musk deer, M. berezovskii) in Shaanxi Province of China during 2001-2012. In Shaanxi Province, farmed musk deer are distributed in the core habitats of wild musk deer, which is the QinglingBashan mountainous area including Baoji, Hanzhong and Ankang. There were 4725 captive forest musk deer in Shaanxi Province, the population growth rates reached 25.06%, and fitted the exponential model well. Generally, the provincial musk deer farms increased rapidly with the average annual rate of 27.92%. The average population size, however, tended to decrease. The average population sizes were 20.53 and 19.45 individuals in 2005 and 2010, respectively. There were 53 commonly occurring diseases in captive musk deer, falling in 10 categories. Among them, the digestive system diseases, parasitic disease and respiratory system diseases occurred most frequently. For captive musk deer, the death rate of males (54.28%) was significantly higher than that of females (45.72%) (P< 0.05), indicating that male-biased death existed in farmed forest musk deer. Moreover, the death rate for adults (35.99%) was significantly higher than that for subadults (31.86%) (P< 0.01) or the young (32.15%) (P< 0.05), but no significant differences existed between the two latter age classes. In order to ex situ conserve the endangered forest musk deer in Shaanxi Province and ensure sustainable musk production, the growth rate of captive forest musk deer population must be enhanced significantly, and the disease occurrence should be controlled and prevented in musk deer farming.

Key words: nitrogen addition, multi-element, ecological stoichiometry, nutrient resorption