Literaturdatenbank
Literaturdatenbank |
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Kapfer, J. M., Munoz, D. J., & Tomasek, T. (2012). Use of wildlife detector dogs to study eastern box turtle (terrapene carolina carolina) populations. Herpetological Conservation and Biology, 7(2), 169–175.
Added by: Sarina Wunderlich (18 Nov 2012 17:43:36 UTC) |
| Resource type: Journal Article BibTeX citation key: Kapfer2012 View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: General Keywords: Emydidae, Habitat = habitat, Nordamerika = North America, Schildkröten = turtles + tortoises, Terrapene, Terrapene carolina Creators: Kapfer, Munoz, Tomasek Collection: Herpetological Conservation and Biology |
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| Abstract |
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The Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina) is listed as “vulnerable” by the IUCN, and is protected in several states within the Midwestern and Northeastern USA. Population data on this species is critical for design of effective conservation plans. Yet, population studies of box turtles can be difficult to conduct, as their cryptic coloration and behaviors make them challenging survey subjects. Survey techniques commonly employed, such as Visual Encounter Surveys (VES), vary in their effectiveness. We tested how effective wildlife detector dogs (WDD) were at surveying for box turtles. We conducted WDD surveys for 1.5 h on each of two consecutive days in the same 11 ha area. We estimated population size from survey results with a two-sample mark-recapture estimator (unbiased Lincoln-Peterson) and by comparing turtle counts to a measure of capture probability (pi: the capture probability at sampling occasion i). We also used our estimates of population size to calculate number of turtles per unit area surveyed (ha). Our WDD surveys resulted in a total of 25 captured box turtles (including three recaptures on day 2). We estimated population sizes ( ) of 19.5 and 44.5, and determined the number of turtles per area was 1.74 to 3.97 per ha, depending on the population estimator employed. Our measures of pi equaled 0.67 and 0.33 for each of the two survey days. Surveys with WDD were more effective than VES, which captured only 22 turtles in 316.5 h.
Added by: Sarina Wunderlich |