Abstract
Prior to European influence, predation by Native Americans was the major factor limiting the numbers and distribution of ungulates in the Intermountain West. This hypothesis is based on analyses of (1) the efficiency of Native American predation, including cooperative hunting, use of dogs, food storage, use of nonungulate foods, and hunting methods; (2) optimal-foraging studies; (3) tribal territory boundary zones as prey reservoirs; (4) species ratios, and sex and age of aboriginal ungulate kills; (5) impact of European diseases on aboriginal populations; and (6) synergism between aboriginal and carnivore predation. Native Americans had no effective conservation practices, and the manner in which they harvested ungulates was the exact opposite of any predicted conservation strategy. Native Americans acted in ways that maximized their individual fitness regardless of the impact on the environment. For humans, conservation is seldom an evolutionarily stable strategy. By limiting ungulate numbers and purposefully modifying the vegetation with fire, Native Americans structured entire plant and animal communities. Because ecosystems with native peoples are entirely different than those lacking aboriginal populations, a “hands-off” or “natural regulation” approach by today’s land managers will not duplicate the ecological conditions under which those ecosystems developed. The modern concept of wilderness as areas without human influence is a myth. North America was not a “wilderness” waiting to be discovered, instead it was home to tens of millions of aboriginal peoples before European-introduced diseases decimated their numbers.
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My research in Yellowstone was funded by the Welder Wildlife Foundation and Utah State University’s Ecology Center. My Aboriginal Overkill project has been supported by USU’s Institute of Political Economy and its Ecology Center. Jim O’Connell, Kristen Hawkes, Steve Simms, Michael Alvard, Randy Simmons, Robert Taylor, and two anonymous reviewers read drafts of this paper and offered suggestions that materially improved its content.
The author received his Ph.D. in wildlife ecology from Utah State University in 1990 and is a Natural Resource Policy Associate with the Institute of Political Economy at Utah State University. He is presently working for Parks Canada on an assessment of the long-term ecosystem states and processes in the central Canadian Rockies. A book on the Yellowstone ecosystem is in press and another book on aboriginal overkill is forthcoming.
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Kay, C.E. Aboriginal overkill. Human Nature 5, 359–398 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02734166
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02734166