If I collected one pregnant doe in March on our lease in Tuscaloosa County and found that the doe was pregnant, would anyone believe me if I proclaimed that the "average" conception date in that area was in March?
How about if I got the Commissioner of the DCNR to put his name on it? Would you believe it then?
I counted 17 collection sites in the Appendix of this report where the "average conception date" was calculated using 5 deer or less. Six of the sites show an "average" conception date that was calculated using only 1 deer.
Take a look at Monroe County. 6 deer sampled and the average conception date is March 4. What happened here? ..... Everybody late to the party?
Take just one or two does that concieved far outside the norm (say in November, or April) and it can throw the average conception date out of whack unless you have a large sample number. That is probably why they want to continue their sampling for several more years to obtain enough samples for it to better average out.
One other thing, I seem to recall reading somewhere that when the biologists take their samples, the fetus must measure a certain length, and if not, are discarded from the data sets. If this is true, then is it possible they are discarding data that would shift the average conception to a later date?
Maybe somebody can answer this?
