Calculation of the Average Age of Sexual Maturity in Marine Mammals

Abstract

The average age of sexual maturity and 1st pregnancy are important criteria in evaluating the status of a population. However, the estimation procedure for these statistics should be sensitive to the different distributions of age-specific reproductive data and should also incorporate a variance estimate to facilitate comparisons between populations. The procedure lends itself well to age-specific data and should be useful in discerning differences between populations of 1/2 yr or more, if a sample of at least 25 is available for each age-class.