Population Estimation Techniques for Lekking Species

With the decline of many lekking species, the need to develop a rigorous population estimation technique is critical for successful conservation and management. We employed mark?resight methods to estimate population size for 2 lekking species: greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) and Gunnison sage-grouse (Centrocercus minimus). We evaluated 2 different estimators: Bowden's estimator and the mixed logit-normal mark?resight model. We captured and marked 75 greater sage-grouse. We counted marked and unmarked birds as they attended 15 known leks. We used 36 and 37 marked Gunnison sage-grouse to estimate population size in 2003 and 2004, respectively. We observed marked and unmarked Gunnison sage-grouse daily...

Categories: Publication; Types: Citation, Journal Citation; Tags: Bowden?s estimator, Journal of Wildlife Management, The Wildlife Society, grouse, lekking species, All tags... mark-resight, mixed logit-normal mark?resight model, population estimation, Fewer tags