Getting the story right: A response to vermeire and colleagues

Abstract

A recent Forum article by Vermeire and colleagues (BioScience 54: 689-695) presents a critique of claims made by various authors who advocate heightened prairie dog conservation. Vermeire and colleagues assert that the only existing historic rangewide estimate of prairie dog occupancy circa 1900 is "artificially high" as a result of human activities and drought during the decades 1880-1900. The authors' contention that prairie dog abundance was artificially high during those decades ignores data on long-term climatic patterns and the historic presence of bison, which suggest the equally likely hypothesis that if prairie dogs were expanding in the late 19th century, it was a rebound to historic levels, falling within an expected range of population fluctuation for this species. Moreover, given the highly variable and unstable environment in which prairie dogs exist, evidence of possibly large historic fluctuations in prairie dog populations should be taken into account as part of any conservation assessment and strategy for this species. © 2005 American Institute of Biological Sciences.