ABSTRACT
The development of wildlife management in Africa has led to a need for more precise assessments of the ages of animal population members. At one time it was considered sufficient to lump the members into arbitrary categories of wear, such as young, middle-aged, old and very old: often denoted as A, B, C and D. This tells us little about the population under scrutiny. It cannot, for example, tell us the turnover rate. Some of the advantages of more precise age determination have been outlined by Spinage (1973); but the objective of the study must always be born in mind, for too fine precision becomes more of academic interest than of practical use. A few years ago, however, we had little idea of the expectation of life of most African mammals, and we are still mainly dependent on Flower’s 1931 work for our knowledge of the lifespans of many of them.
