Monitoring carnivore populations at the landscape scale: occupancy modeling of tigers from sign surveys

Monitoring carnivore populations at the landscape scale: occupancy modeling of tigers from sign surveys

Kota Ullas Karanth1,, Arjun M. Gopalaswamy, Narayanarao Samba Kumar, Srinivas Vaidyanathan, James D. Nichols and Darryl I. MacKenzie

Here is a new paper from Dr Ullas Karanth et al, which is of great relevance to conservationists. It has appeared in the Journal of Applied Ecology. The paper lays emphasis on the use of surveys of large carnivore signs such as tracks and scats, to assess their distributions across large landscapes.

This is an application of an occupancy model Dr Ullas had earlier developed with Jim Hines and other colleagues at USGS and was used to assess tiger distributions in 30,000 sq.km landscape in Karnataka.

The method uses spatial replication and deals explicitly with the problem of imperfect detections, which is often a problematic issue with distribution surveys.The method has great potential for cost effective surveys of tigers and other similar wide-ranging species.  

Dr Ullas Karanth is currently working on further model extensions to link these data to rigorous estimates of tiger density from camera trap surveys at specific sites to generate tiger abundance estimates for larger regions.

This paper is a must read paper for wildlife researchers and managers. I recommend it unreservedly.