Targeted efforts are more effective than combined approaches for sampling two rare carnivores

Abstract

Verifying the abundance and distribution of species of conservation concern is necessary for land management agencies to determine potential impacts of management actions and for monitoring long-term population trends. In the Rocky Mountains of the United States, Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) and wolverine (Gulo gulo) are currently species of management importance for federal land management agencies. Optimal winter methods for detecting the 2 species differ in that wolverines are generally detected using bait stations and lynx are most efficiently detected through snow-track encounters. There has been interest in valueadded approaches such as observing track encounters while traveling to and from bait stations, to improve multispecies detection probabilities. To estimate the value of adding a track survey to bait station travel (referred to as en route surveys) compared to a stand-alone snow track survey, we conducted both types of surveys in an area where bait stations were located in western Montana, known as the Southwestern Crown of the Continent, from 2013-2016. We collected genetic data (backtracking to genetic material once a track was encountered) and recorded the distance surveyed from both types of track surveys.Our results showed that stand-alone track surveys were more efficient for detecting lynx than en route surveys in 2015 and