IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Alexander, P.D.; Gese, E.M.; Quigley, H.; Thompson, D.; Elbroch, M. | |
| Camera trapping vs radio-telemetry: a comparison of noninvasive and invasive methods for monitoring cougar populations | |
| 2014 Conference Proceeding | |
Conventional methods for monitoring cougar populations involve capture and radio-collaring, followed by intensive radio-tracking and, essentially, simple enumeration of individual cougars. This method is assumed to be accurate, but prohibitively expensive and logistically challenging. Noninvasive survey techniques may offer opportunities to accurately monitor cougar population trends at lower costs than conventional capture and radio-collar research. However, few of these survey techniques have been employed in conjunction with conventional cougar monitoring methods in order to validate the noninvasive population estimates against those derived from radio-telemetry. A long-term cougar ecology study currently being conducted in the Jackson Hole region of Northwest Wyoming (the Teton Cougar Project (TCP)) offers an opportunity to test noninvasive monitoring techniques on a population of cougars with an estimated known density. We setup an array of 43 remote camera stations across the TCP study area from June to September in 2012 and 2013. The array comprised of 6x6 km cells. covering a total of 1,548 km2. Camera stations were setup using a non-reward blood lure to increase detection probability and to increase probability of identification through repeated photographs per detection. We recorded 17 and 16 cougar photo-events in 2012 and 2013, respectively. We identified individual cougars based on size, morphology, and natural markings. We produced estimates of abundance using capture-mark-recapture analysis. Preliminary analysis indicates that the telemetry-derived population estimates fall within the confidence estimates produced by the camera survey. However, low numbers of unique individuals detected and potential violations of mark-recapture assumptions present issues that still need resolving. |
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