Do Pellet Counts Index White-Tailed Deer Numbers and Population Change?

White (1992) elucidates important limitations using correlation analyses to test population indices. However, in reevaluating Fuller's (1991) white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) aerial survey and pellet count data, White (1992), through exhaustive computer simulation, clearly confirmed the main tenet of that note: the data collected using standard techniques were not sufficiently precise nor accurate to conclude that pellet counts index white-tailed deer numbers and population change. Because some pellet count results indicated an implausible change in the deer population and no other solid supporting data exist in the literature, my contention that "counts of pellet groups probably do not unambiguously reflect deer abundance" (Fuller 1991:395) remains justified.