Estimating Brown Hyaena Occupancy Using Baited Camera Traps
By M. Thorn, D. Scott, Matthew Green, Philip W. Bateman, E. Cameron. 2009
106 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Conservation and management of brown hyaenas (Hyaena brunnea) is hampered by a lack of information on abundance and distribution, which is difficult and labour-intensive to obtain. However, occupancy surveys offer a potentially efficient and robust means of assessing brown hyaena populations. We evaluate the efficacy of camera trapping for estimating brown hyaena occupancy, and the effect of environmental variables and lures on detection probability. We estimated population density in Pilanesberg National Park, South Africa, at 2.8/100 km2, occupancy at 1.0 and model-averaged detection probability at 0.1. Using a fish lure increased detection probability to 0.2 and significantly increased encounter rates. We also found that brown hyaenas are more likely to be detected in areas of scrub or woodland rather than grassland. Our results suggest that 13 camera sites would be needed to achieve an occupancy estimate with S.E. of 0.05, and a minimum of 16–34 sampling occasions (with and without the fish lure) should be used in comparable study areas. We conclude that camera trapping is a viable method of estimating brown hyaena occupancy at local and landscape scales and capture—recapture analysis is also possible at a local scale.
Subfields: Ecology, Nature and Landscape Conservation
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1e246ea4e6faaa8f23a44dfedab23d76860cf063
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Ecology
Citations in the corpus
- Estimating lion population variables: prey and disease effects in Kruger National Park, South Africa. (2010, methodology): “Several methods can help estimate the numbers of a carnivorous species in a specific area (e.g. Wilson and Delahay 2001; Thorn et al. 2009).”
- A critique of density estimation from camera-trap data† (2012, background): “Some researchers use lures or baits in front of the camera traps to increase detection probability of target species (e.g., Giman et al. 2007, Watts et al. 2008, Thorn et al. 2009).”