Graeme James Caughley FAA (28 September 1937 – 16 February 1994) was a New Zealand population ecologist, conservation biologist, and researcher.
[3] This event encouraged him to learn more about New Zealand's geology and as Gunn and Walker explain "Ecology had a close call with Graeme Caughley.
In his last two years Caughley dropped down to part-time and went to work with his friend Thane Riney at the New Zealand Forest Service on feral goat herds.
Caughley continued his education at the University of Sydney (1960–1963) with his advisors Charles Birch (insect population ecologist) and Harry Frith (ornithologist).
[2] Caughley found that kangaroo groups are formed by a random process of members coming and leaving,[5] which was in contrast to what he had seen in red deer.
[3] He used his studies at the Forest Service for his PhD thesis at the University of Canterbury (1962–1967) advised primarily by Bernard Stonehouse (Antarctic and penguin ecologist).
He looked at mortality rate curves (qx) among ungulates, rats, voles, sheep, and man he found that they followed a common pattern.
[9] This is important in wildlife management since it shows that regardless of natural mortality factors populations tend to have high juvenile and mature deaths.
[11] It had however, been used incorrectly by mammalogists who thought that vertebrate life table and fecundity data somehow paralleled those of caged insects held at low density.
[12] R. S. Millar stated in his review that until this book literature on analyses had been scattered and difficult to understand, but Caughley made topics more readable.
Clinchy and Krebs explain that in fact it was not simple enough and "the basic distinction in conservation biology is between field biologists and lab scientists".
[17] It then was a heated debate against those that used expensive modelling programs and those that went out to do the same thing with inexpensive tools purchased at a hardware store such as pvc pipe and bits of string.