IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Harrison, R.L. | |
| A Comparison of Detector Dogs, Hair Snares, Cameras, and Scent Stations for Detection of Bobcats | |
| 2006 Cat News (44): 20-21 | |
Adequate monitoring and detection of populations of small and medium-sized felids has been difficult to achieve with traditional methods. However, new detection methods have been developed. To compare survey methods for bobcats _Lynx rufus_, I examined the rate of detection, cost, and time required for automatic cameras, hair snares, scent stations, and a detector dog trained to find bobcat feces (scats). This dog produced nearly ten times the number of bobcat detections as the other methods combined. Although the detector dog was the most expensive method and, depending upon weather and number of scats required, took more field time than the other methods, its use required only one visit to each survey site. Use of detector dogs has the potential to achieve detection rates consistently high enough to provide useful indices for the population monitoring of bobcats. Detector dogs may also be used in a laboratory setting to identify bobcat scats within a sample set collected from the field. |
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