Title of the project

Estimating Population Size of Elusive Animals with DNA from Hunter-Collected Feces: Four Methods for Brown Bears

Description

To test the use of non-invasive genetic sampling as a process to estimate population size

Volunteer hunters were requested to submit any located bear feces. Samples were collected, submitted and genetically analysed to estimate the population size.

90% of all data submitted was submitted by hunters

Results

population size estimates range from 378 to 572 bears in 2001 and 273 to 433 bears in 2002

Location

Country	Sweden
Level	Regional
Region	Dalarna and Gavleborg counties

Starting date

2001

Habitat Types

Forest/Woodland

Protection status of the areas

Hunting reserve

Species

Species Caracteristics	Huntable species, Protected species, Threatened species
Species Type	Large carnivores
Name(s) of main species	Brown bear - Ursus arctos

Conservation action(s)

Research and data collection (e.g. monitoring, bag data)

Partners

Leading partners

Department of Ecology and Natural Resource Management, Agricultural University of Norway (https://www.nmbu.no/en/about-nmbu/faculties/miljotek/departments/ina)

Laboratoire d’Ecologie Alpine, Génomique des Populations et Biodiversité (http://www-leca.ujf-grenoble.fr/?lang=en)

Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (http://www.nina.no/english/home)

Scandinavian Brown Bear Project (http://bearproject.info/)

Other partners

48 local hunting organisations

Estimation of Human Resources needed

roughly 24,000 hunters volunteered in 2001;
roughly 21,000 hunters volunteered in 2002.

Publication(s)

BELLEMAIN, E., SWENSON, J. E., TALLMON, D., BRUNBERG, S. and TABERLET, P. (2005), Estimating Population Size of Elusive Animals with DNA from Hunter-Collected Feces: Four Methods for Brown Bears. (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2005.00549.x/abstract)Conservation Biology, 19: 150–161

Weblinks

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2005.00549.x/abstract