Forum: Once there were so many:Animals as ecological baselines

Environmental History

Volumn 16, Issue 3, 2011, Pages 400-407

  Wiersma, Yolanda F ^a   Sandlos, John ^a  

^a MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY OF NEWFOUNDLAND   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ANIMAL; CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT; ECOLOGICAL APPROACH; HISTORICAL RECORD; THEORETICAL STUDY; WILD POPULATION;

ANIMALIA;

EID: 80955142242     PISSN: 10845453     EISSN: 19308892     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/envhis/emr045     Document Type: Review

References (49)

1. For an overview of wildlife restoration initiatives, see David S. Maeher, Reed F. Noss, and Jeffry L. Larkin, Large Mammal Restoration: Ecological and Sociological Challenges in the 21st Century (Washington: Island Press, 2001).
2. See Ernest Thompson Seton, Lives of Game Animals, An Account of those Land Animals in America North of the Mexican Border, Which Are Considered "Game," Either Because They Have Held the Attention of Sportsmen, or Received the Protection of Law, vol. 3, Part 1-2, (Boston: Charles T. Branford, 1953), 655-56.
3. J. Dewey Soper, "History, Range and Home Life of the Northern Bison," Ecological Monographs 2 (October 1941): 362.
4. Soper's estimate is cited in the following publications: National Wood Bison Recovery Team, National Recovery Plan for the Wood Bison (Bison bison athabascae). National Recovery Plan No. 21 (Ottawa: Environment Canada, 2001);
5. William Harper and Cormack Gates, "Recovery of Wood Bison in British Columbia," in Proceedings of a Conference on the Biology and Management of Species and Habitats at Risk, ed. L. M. Darling, Kamloops, B.C., vol. 2, B.C. Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, Victoria, B.C., and University College of the Cariboo, Kamloops, B.C. (February 15-19, 1999), 915;
6. British Columbia Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection, Wildlife at Risk in British Columbia -Wood Bison. http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/wld/documents/ wbison.pdf (accessed Nov. 27, 2009), 1.
7. Using article index Scopus, we found the following nineteen papers in the peerreviewed scientific literature (dates ranging from 1936 to 2007) that cited Seton's population estimates as a credible baseline for various mammal populations. For citations of Seton's bighorn (or mountain) sheep estimates, see Helmut K. Buechner, "The Bighorn Sheep in the United States," Wildlife Monographs 4 (May 1960): 3-174;
8. Fred Mallery Packard, "An Ecological Study of the Bighorn Sheep in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado," Journal of Mammalogy 27 (February 1946): 3-28;
9. Lester J. McCann, "Ecology of the Mountain Sheep," American Midland Naturalist 56 (October 1956): 297-324;
10. Gustavo A. Gutierrez-Espelata, Philip W. Hedrick, Steven T. Kalinowski, Daniel Garrigan, and Walter M. Boyce, "Is the Decline of Desert Bighorn Sheep from Infectious Disease the Result of Low MHC Variation?" Heredity 86 (2001): 439-50; (Pubitemid 32745305)
11. Paul R. Krausman, Peter Bangs, Kyran Kunkel, Michael K. Phillips, Zack Parsons, and Eric Rominger, "Mountain Sheep Restoration through Private/Public Partnership," Large Mammal Restoration, 231.
12. For references to Seton's elk estimates, see Jeffery L. Larkin, Roy A. Grimes, Louis Cornicelli, John J. Cox, and David S. Maehr, "Returning Elk to Appalachia, Foiling Murphy's Law," Large Mammal Restoration, 101;
13. Jason F. Hicks, Janet L. Rachlow, Olin E. Rhodes Jr., Christen L. Williams, and Lisette P. Waits, "Reintroduction and Genetic Structure: Rocky Mountain Elk in Yellowstone and the Western States," Journal of Mammalogy 88 (2007): 129-38; (Pubitemid 46363955)
14. Rick Rosatte, Joe Hamr, Jim Young, Ivan Filion, and Howard Smith, "The Restoration of Elk (Cervus elaphus) in Ontario, Canada: 1998-2005," Restoration Ecology 15 (March 2007): 34-43. (Pubitemid 46487160)
15. For references to Seton's estimates for wolves, see C. Vilá, R. Amorim, J. A. Leonard, D. Posada, J. Castroviejo, F. Petrucci-Fonsesca, K. A. Crandall, H. Ellegren, and R. K. Wayne, "Mitochondrial DNA Phylogeography and Population History of the Grey Wolf Canis lupus," Molecular Ecology 8 (1999): 2089-2103; (Pubitemid 30079117)
16. Jennifer A. Leonard, Carles Vilá, and Robert K. Wayne, "Legacy Lost: Genetic Variability and Population Size of Extirpated US Grey Wolves (Canis lupus)," Molecular Ecology 14 (2005): 9-17. (Pubitemid 40141472)
17. Seton's bison estimate has been revised downward: see Natalie Dierschke Halbert, "The Utilization of Genetic Markers to Resolve Modern Management Issues in Historic Bison Populations: Implications for Species Conservation," (PhD diss., Texas A&M University, December 2003), 3.
18. But even with this downward revision of bison numbers, Seton's estimate is often mentioned as the upper end of a historical range of estimates. See Floyd Larson, "The Role Bison in Maintaining the Short Grass Plains," Ecology 21 (April 1940): 113-21;
19. George Arthur, "The North American Plains Bison: A Brief History," Prairie Forum 9 (Winter 1984): 282;
20. Frank Camp, "The Tragedy of the American Buffalo," Canadian West 6 (1990): 126;
21. Judith L. McDonald, "Essay: Bison Restoration in the Great Plains and the Challenge of their Management," Great Plains Research 11 (Spring 2001): 104.
22. For more isolated references to Seton's estimates of other species, see James Beer, "Distribution and Status of Pronghorn Antelope in Montana," Journal of Mammalogy 25 (February 1944): 43-46;
23. Daniel W. Mulhern and Craig J. Knowles, "Black-Tailed Prairie Dog Status and Future Conservation Planning," Conserving Biodiversity on Native Rangelands, Symposium Proceedings, August 17, 1995, Fort Robinson State Park, Nebraska (Fort Collins: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station), 19-29;
24. Robert J. Naiman, Jerry M. Melillo, and John E. Hobbie, "Ecosystem Alteration of Boreal Forest Streams by Beaver (Castor canadensis)," Ecology 67 (October 1986): 1254-69;
25. Robert J. Naiman, Carol A. Johnston, and James C. Kelley, "Alteration of North American Streams by Beaver," Bioscience 38 (December 1988): 753-62.
26. Seton's populations estimates of bison, antelope, white-tailed deer, elk, and mule deer were all cited in Frederic E. Clements's famous discussion of successional climax. See Clements, "Nature and Structure of the Climax," Journal of Ecology 24 (February 1936): 252-84.
27. The authors have also encountered high numbers of references to Seton in the popular natural history literature and in government reports. For the prairie dog example, see Lance T. Vermeire, Rod K. Heitschmidt, Patricia S. Johnson, and Bok F. Sowell, "The Prairies Dog Story: Do We Have It Right?" BioScience 54 (July 2004): 689-95. (Pubitemid 38940965)
28. Loren McClenachan, "Historical Declines of Goliath Grouper Populations in South Florida, USA" Endangered Species Research 7 (2009): 175-81.
29. For other archival studies, see Richard B. King, Michael J. Oldham, Wayne F. Weller, and Douglas Wynn, "Historic and Current Amphibian and Reptile Distributions in the Island Region of Western Lake Erie," American Midland Naturalist 138 (July 1997): 153-73. (Pubitemid 27358461)
30. See also Mark Madison, "Conserving Conservation: Field Notes from an Animal Archive," The Public Historian 26 (Winter 2004): 145-55.
31. For studies using land survey data, see Andrew P. Rayburn and Annabel L. Major, "Using Landscape History and Baseline Data in the Restoration of a Midwestern Savanna," Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science 115 (2008): 1-11.
32. A summary of the use and limitations of survey data for ecological work can be found in L. A. Shulte and D. J. Mladenoff, "The Original US Public Land Survey Records: Their Use and Limitations in Reconstructing Presettlement Vegetation," Journal of Forestry 99 (2001): 5-10. (Pubitemid 32914469)
33. For genetic analysis, see M. K. Schwartz, K. B. Aubry, K. S. McKelvey, K. L. Pilgrim, J. P. Copeland, J. R. Squires, R. M. Inman, S. M. Wisely, and L.F. Ruggiero, "Inferring Geographic Isolation of Wolverines in California Using Historical DNA," Journal of Wildlife Management 71 (2007): 2170-79.
34. For sediment cores, see Frank E. Marshall III, G. Lynn Wingard, and Patrick Pitts, "A Simulation of Historic Hydrology and Salinity in Everglades National Parks: Coupling Paleoecologic Assemblage Data with Regression Models," Estuaries and Coasts 32 (2009): 37-53.
35. For a zooarchaeological study, see Maribeth S. Murray, "Zooarchaeology and Arctic Marine Mammal Biogeography, Conservation and Management," Ecological Applications 18 (2008): S41-S55.
36. For tree ring data, see Lee E. Frelich and Craig G. Lorimer, "Natural Disturbance Regimes in Hemlock-Hardwood Forests of the Upper Great Lakes Region," Ecological Monographs 61 (1991): 145-64. (Pubitemid 121000773)
37. See P. Arcese and A. R. E. Sinclair, "The Role of Protected Areas as Ecological Baselines," Journal of Wildlife Management 61 (1997): 587-602; (Pubitemid 27369874)
38. A. R. E. Sinclair, Simon A. R. Mduma, and Peter Arcese, "Protected Areas as Biodiversity Benchmarks for Human Impact: Agriculture and the Serengeti Avifauna," Proceedings of the Royal Society London, Series B. 269 (2004): 2401-5. (Pubitemid 36005692)
39. For critiques of protected areas as baselines for ecological change, see G. E. Davis, D. M. Graber, and S. A. Acker, "National Parks as Scientific Standards for the Biosphere; Or, How Are You Going To Tell How It Used To Be, When There's Nothing Left To See?" The George Wright Forum 21 (2004): 34-44;
40. T. Josefsson, G. HÖrnberg, and L. Östlund, "Long-Term Human Impact and Vegetation Changes in a Boreal Forest Reserve: Implications for the Use of Protected Areas as Ecological References," Ecosystems 12 (2009): 1017-36.
41. For an explanation of historical range of variability, see Peter B. Landres, Penelope Morgan, and Frederick J. Swanson, "Overview of the Use of Natural Variability Concepts in Managing Ecological Systems," Ecological Applications 9 (1999): 1179-88; (Pubitemid 29536896)
42. Gregory H. Aplet and William S. Keeton, "Application of Historical Range of Variability Concepts to Biodiversity Conservation," in Practical Approaches to the Conservation of Biological Diversity, eds. Richard K. Baydack, Henry Campa, Jonathan B. Haufler, (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1999), 71-86.
43. For a discussion of back-casting, see H. Kokko, E. Helle, J. LindstrÖm, E. Ranta, T. Sipliä, and F. Courchamp, "Backcasting Population Sizes of Ringed and Grey Seals in the Baltic and Lake Saimaa During the 20th Century," Annales Zoologici Fennici 36 (1999): 65-73. (Pubitemid 29337508)
44. For modeling historical habitat change, see Etouko Nonaka and Thomas A. Spies, "Historical Range of Variability in Landscape Structure: A Simulation Study in Oregon, USA," Ecological Applications 15 (2005): 1727-46. (Pubitemid 41408043)
45. For example, see A. R. Hoelzel, J. Halley, S. J. O'Brien, C. Campagna, T. Arnborm, B. LeBoeuf, K. Ralls, and G. A. Dover, "Elephant Seal Genetic Variation and the Use of Simulation Models to Investigate Historical Population Bottlenecks," Journal of Heredity 84 (1993): 443-49; (Pubitemid 24006801)
46. Hans J. Skuag, Lennnart Frimannslund, and Nils I. øien, "Historical Population Assessment of Barents Sea Harp Seals (Pagophilus groenlandicus)," ICES Journal of Marine Science 64 (2007): 1356-65. (Pubitemid 350075752)
47. For the upland bird study, see David R. Foster, Glenn Motzkin, Debra Bernardos, and James Cardoza, "Wildlife Dynamics in the Changing New England Landscape," Journal of Biogeography 29 (2002): 1337-57. (Pubitemid 35456862)
48. For the bison study, see Joshua J. Millspaugh, Robert A. Gitzen, Daniel S. Licht, Sybill Amelon, Thomas W. Bonnot, David S. Jachowshi, D. Todd Jones-Farrand, et al., "Effects of Culling on Bison Demographics in Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota," Natural Areas Journal 28 (2008): 240-50.
49. For a historical treatment of this issue, see Andrew Isenberg, The Destruction of the Bison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).