ABSTRACT
Predators, Equilibria, and Lack Thereof. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 Exponential Population Growth and Ungulate Impacts on Biodiversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 Whither the Balance of Nature? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Selective Hunting Selects! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Ungulate Population Dynamics with and without Hunting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Conclusions: What to Do? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Modern ungulate management must have three major components: research to increase its knowledge base, a choice of management objectives dictated in part by societal choices, and use of scientific knowledge to achieve those objectives. In addition to being valuable for management, research on ungulates has made major contributions to the development of ecological theory. The study of ungulates is particularly important, because their longevity, strong iteroparity, and overlapping generations produce unique patterns of population dynamics and life-history evolution (Gaillard et al. 2000, 2001). Wildlife management is motivated by human activities: wildlife would not need managers if it was not because of society’s wishes to either exploit it, to minimize human impacts on ecosystems, or to avoid wildlife impacts on humans. As human populations expand, use more resources, and increasingly affect ecosystem functions, the need for scientific information to guide wildlife management increases. The diversity of wildlife management issues also increases. A few decades ago, ungulate management mostly involved setting hunting seasons and quotas to avoid overexploitation. In many cases, managers were reintroducing ungulates in areas where they had been extirpated (Komers and Curman 2000). Usually, the main preoccupation was that there were too few ungulates, not too many. The “client” of the fledgling wildlife management profession was the sport hunter, and some countries had no tradition of professional wildlife management based on ecological research.
