Captive Alpine Musk Deer Musk Production And Musk Ketone Levels

1. Study of production of captive musk deer musk in the district of XinglongshanMusk which was secreted only by Adult male musk deer species are widely used as the resource of Asian traditional medicine and the perfume industry all over the world. The musk deer species are endangered nowadays, as they were killed for the usage of the musk and the habitat of musk deer declined. So it is important to carry out ex situ conservation and provide a sustainable way of musk by musk deer domestication. China has over 50 years history of domesticated musk deer since in 1990 the domestication of musk deer began. Based on the data of the production of musk of total 13 years (1997 to 2009) collected in China's Gansu Xinglong deer field, this paper analyzes the production of musk deer musk, effective take rate and related factors, as the following is the result:1. Musk-extraction ratio(MER) of captive musk deer is 90.30% (n=732), Average musk production(AMP) is 7.90±0.17 g/animal·year(n=732) from 0.00g to 34.20g;2. The factor of the source of the individual animal makes influence of MER and AMP of male musk deer. MER of wild-caught male musk deer is 93.75%(n=272) and AMP of them is 8.76±0.27 g/animal·year(n= 272). Both of their MER and AMP are higher than those of domesticated musk in which MER is 88.26% (n=460) and AMP is 7.39±0.22g/aninal·year(n=460), but there is no significant difference between the MER and AMP of different resource of the male musk deer;3. Under the influence of captive management, the MER and AMP of captive musk musk deer make the change of the years; 4. The factor, the age, affects the MER and AMP of captive musk deer I which the former of the 1.5 year old was 87.5% and the latter of them was 8.27±0.47 g/annimal·year (n= 96), and there was its musk production peak which was 1.5～8.5 years old;2. musk gland pheromone levels of musk ketoneThe musk gland, a signal resource of the chemical communication,secrets the musk that the muscone is the main component and plays an important part of transferring the passenges. The secretion of musk is taken in control of heremone and directly reflects the condition of the inner execretion. In November,2008, we collected 50 samples of the musk in the musk farm in the district of the Beusty of Xionglongshan Reserve of M. The muscone were measured by Gas Chromaph (GC) through the.According to the age of the male musk, we analysed the effect of the age to the level of the muscone including the percentage of the muscone in the musk(%)(PMM),and the total muscone of the musk(TMM). The founding is that:1)PM of farm musk is 0.91±0.06%(n=44), from 0.30% to 2.03%. PM of the innormal musk is bigger than that of normal muskp;2) There is no signifance (P=0.93) between the four groups of the age 1.5,2.5,2.5～8.5,8.5～13.5 about their PMM, when they reached the grown sex and the same time they tend to induce in the age.3) however, TMM show the significant deviance (P=0.007) between the four groups of age, and the deviance derived from the deviance between the age 8.5～13.5 (31.310±8.16mg, n=8) and the 1.5 (75.00±11.18mg, n=14),2,5 (101.36±8.693mg, n=8),2.5～8.5 (90.22±15.05mg, n=20).This research analyzed the level of the muscone in the musk secreted by the farm musk (M. sifanicus) according to the age and the function of the musk gland which demonstrated the sex dimorphism, which is helpful to learn the mechanism of the control of the inner heromone and the chemical communitcation.