Estimating animal abundance and density are fundamental goals of many wildlife monitoring programs. Camera trapping has become an increasingly popular tool to achieve these monitoring goals due to recent advances in modeling approaches and the capacity to simultaneously collect data on multiple species. However, estimating the density of unmarked populations continues to be problematic due to the difficulty in implementing complex modeling approaches, low precision of estimates, and absence of rigor in testing of model assumptions and their influence on results. Here, we describe a novel approach that uses still image camera traps to estimate animal density without the need for individual identification, based on the time spent in front of the camera (TIFC). Using results from a large-scale multispecies monitoring program with nearly 3000 cameras deployed over 6 years in Alberta, Canada, we provide a reproducible methodology to estimate parameters and we test key assumptions of the TIFC model. We compare moose (Alces alces) density estimates from aerial surveys and TIFC, including incorporating correction factors for known TIFC assumption violations. The resulting corrected TIFC density estimates are comparable to aerial density estimates. We discuss the limitations of the TIFC method and areas needing further investigation, including the need for long-term monitoring of assumption violations and the number of cameras necessary to provide precise estimates. Despite the challenges of assumption violations and high measurement error, cameras and the TIFC method can provide useful alternative or complementary animal density estimates for multispecies monitoring when compared to traditional monitoring methods.
Related Resources
The Boreal-Arctic Wetland and Lake Dataset
Resource Date:
2021
Organization
Webinar - Boreal Peatlands in the Discontinuous Permafrost Zone of Canada
Resource Date:
October
2021
Organization
“We’re Made Criminals Just to Eat off the Land”: Colonial Wildlife Management and Repercussions on Inuit Well-Being
Resource Date:
October
2021
Was this helpful?
|