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Pacheco, L.F.
Large Estimates of Minimum Viable Population Sizes
2004 Conservation Biology (18): 1178-1179
In this letter, Pacheco writes about a recent paper of Reed et al. (2003) on the minimum viable population size. The authors define a minimum viable population (MVP) as one large enough to ensure a 99% probability of persistence for 40 generations and conclude that "_. . . _in order to ensure long-term persistence [viability] of vertebrate populations, sufficient habitat must be conserved to allow for approximately 7000 breeding age adults." For Pacheco, the model proposed is inconsistent with an empirical, historical example of one large carnivore species that was able to persist for much longer than 40 generations with a population much smaller than 7000 reproductive individuals. The Bali tiger (_Panthera tigris balica_), which has only recently gone extinct, thrived on that island for at least several centuries before habitat loss and human-caused mortality drove it to extinction.
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