Methods for Monitoring Large Terrestrial Animals in the Wild

Abstract

Reliable information about wildlife is absolutely important for making informed management decisions. The issues with the effectiveness of the control and monitoring of both large and small wild animals are relevant to assess and protect the world’s biodiversity. Monitoring becomes part of the methods in wildlife ecology for observation, assessment, and forecasting of the human environment. World practice reveals the potential of the joint application of both proven traditional and modern technologies using specialized equipment to organize environmental control and management processes. Monitoring large terrestrial animals require an individual approach due to their low density and larger habitat. Elk/moose are such animals. This work aims to evaluate the methods for monitoring large wild animals, suitable for controlling the number of elk/moose in the framework of nature conservation activities. Using different models allows determining the population size without affecting the animals and without significant financial costs. Although, the accuracy of each model is determined by its postulates implementation and initial conditions that need statistical data. Depending on the geographical, climatic, and economic conditions in each territory, it is possible to use different tools and equipment (e.g., cameras, GPS sensors, and unmanned aerial vehicles), a flexible variation of which will allow reaching the golden mean between the desires and capabilities of researchers.

Robust Algorithms for Drone-Assisted Monitoring of Big Animals in Harsh Conditions of Siberian Winter Forests: Recovery of European elk (Alces alces) in Salair Mountains

“…In the conditions of limited natural resources, the effectiveness of environmental management decisions depends on an accurate and timely analysis of environmental data. Therefore, improved methods of information collecting and processing can lower the environmental impact of managerial actions in the sphere of rational exploitation of natural resources and natural balance [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ]. A consistent approach to environmental management requires new systems of effective environmental monitoring.…”

“…Animal surveys contribute to the rational conservation of biodiversity. A proper analysis of statistics on migration, fertility and mortality can reveal cases of poaching and assess its real scale [ 3 , 4 , 6 , 10 , 11 , 14 ]. A competent approach provides basic data for informed managerial decisions on the matters of animal population as an integral part of national wealth [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ].…”

“…Animal survey is an important control factor that helps to balance socio-economic and natural interests. The existing methods are based on direct counting or indirect evidence, e.g., footprints, feces, etc., as their results often prove unreliable [ 10 , 14 , 17 , 20 , 21 ]. Based on old databases, these methods are expensive and time-consuming [ 22 ].…”

Internal transcribed spacer primer evaluation for vascular plant metabarcoding

“…The term metabarcoding, which describes the analysis of complex DNA samples with the aim of taxonomic identification, has the potential to provide a scale and accuracy in biodiversity surveys that was previously unattainable for many taxonomic groups (Deiner et al 2017;Ruppert et al 2019). However, the increase in technical complexity (Piper et al 2019), compared to most other monitoring methods (Marsh and Trenham 2008;Prosekov et al 2020), also implies a higher susceptibility to errors and therefore requires stringent quality control (Deiner et al 2017;Ruppert et al 2019;Thalinger et al 2020). The objective validation of metabarcoding methods can most efficiently be implemented through mock communities, since the composition of environmental DNA (eDNA) samples is unknown (Bjørnsgaard et al 2017;Elbrecht and Leese 2017;Smith et al 2017;Zhang et al 2018;Braukmann et al 2019;Thalinger et al 2020).…”

Roadkills as a Method to Monitor Raccoon Dog Populations

“…However, there is a cost element to the accuracy of data [ 1 , 2 ], with the costs of higher accuracy sometimes becoming unacceptable. New recently developed methods, such as drone surveys, camera counts and surveys based on DNA analysis, can be somewhat expensive, but equally so too can traditional groundwork by qualified persons [ 3 , 4 ].…”