Arctic deer live on islands in Canada's arctic regions. They search for food by moving over ice from island to island during the course of the year. Their habitat is limited to areas warm enough to sustain the plants on which they feed and cold enough, at

The writer of the argument concludes, based on some groundless reports from local hunters, that the purported decline in deer population in Canada’s arctic regions are caused by the effects of recent global warming. The author further points out that deer’s failure in following their age-old migration patterns across the frozen sea is directly responsible for the decline. Close scrutiny of the reports, upon them the conclusion is based, reveals that they lend little credible support to the author’s conclusion.

The first argument against the conclusion regards the reports. The author does not indicate that how many dears or regions were studied in the reports. As you know, in such studies, the larger the sample used in the study, the more valid and reliable the findings are. Perhaps in this study, only one region with a few deer was studies, in which event the findings of this study are neither reliable nor valid. Even assuming that enough deer were studied, there is another crucial problem with the reports. According to the letter, Arctic deer live on the entire islands in Canada’s arctic regions. I would need to know whether the regions or regions were studied was or were representative of the deer live on the entire Canada’s arctic regions or not. However, the argument fails to offer any convincing evidence that this is the case. In short, I cannot accept the author’s recommendation unless the author provides evidence regarding the problems with reports.

Yet another problem with the conclusion is that the author relies only on the coincidence of global warming and the decline in the population of deer. Absent evidence whether there is any cause-and-effect relationship between these two phenomena, the author’s conclusion is unconvincing. Perhaps the decline was resulted from uncontrolled excessive hunting of deer all over the regions. Or perhaps the travelers and tourists were responsible for the decline by affecting the migration patterns or the environment. Any of these scenarios, if true, would undermine the author’s conclusion.

Even assuming that the global warming was responsible for the decline, there is still another problem with the argument. The author assumes that the decline was due to deer’s failure to follow their age-old migration patterns. Yet there is no substantiating evidence that this is the case. May be the deer died due to increase in the temperature. Or maybe food shortage, due to global warming unforeseen repercussions, led to decrease in the deer’s population in the arctic regions. Without accounting for these and other plausible alternative explanations, I remain unconvinced.

In sum, the argument is logically flawed and therefore unpersuasive. To bolster the argument, the author must provide evidence that the reports are eligible in respects of being significant in size as well as being representative of the larger population. We would also need to know whether deer’s failure in following their age-old migration patterns were, by itself, responsible for the decline in the deer’s population. Finally, I would need to know that no other factors involving the coincidence affected the reports.