The Viggers & Hearn conundrum: a kangaroo home range study with no implications for land management

Abstract

1. Viggers & Hearn (2005) examined the encroachment of native herbivores on to farmland. They presented kangaroo home range estimates and pasture biomass data for three sites in south-eastern Australia, then made broad management recommendations regarding the preservation of remnant habitat. 2. While Viggers & Hearn identified potentially important patterns, we believe that their data were neither sufficient nor appropriate to reveal the processes that underlie these patterns. 3. Specifically, their study was unreplicated at the land-use level, used inappropriate density estimates for their study populations, failed to measure resources adequately, used flawed methods of home range analysis,..