Young, Christian C. In the Absence of Predators: Conservation and Controversy on the Kaibab Plateau. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002.
The wildlife management controversy over the deer on the Kaibab Plateau, north of the Grand Canyon, remains one of the best-known examples of nature’s balance being upset by human efforts to protect a certain aspect of nature. The controversy involves an apparent deer population explosion and crash on the Kaibab Plateau in the 1920s, which was initially blamed on the removal of natural predators. In the first comprehensive account of the Kaibab deer controversy, Christian C. Young describes the interactions, rivalries, and conflicts between state and federal agencies, scientists, nature lovers, conservationists, and hunters. Young blends a contextualized history of events with a new and more useful understanding about the promise of scientific knowledge in the face of factual uncertainty and public controversy. — University of Nebraska Press website.