Untrapped potential: Do bear hunter cameras accurately index nontarget species?

Abstract

Remote camera use by hunters offers the potential to collect citizen-derived data on multiple species using hunter surveys, but the effectiveness of this approach is untested. We examine whether observations from remote cameras that hunters use at their black bear (Ursus americanus) bait sites and reported via hunter surveys are an effective method to monitor species. We compared data collected from pseudo-bear bait sites established for this study to hunter established bear bait site observations from the same study area. We also quantified observations reported on hunter surveys as a landscape index alternative to white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) hunter indices, gray wolf (Canis lupus) surveys, and mustelid (Mustelidae) trapper indices. We did not detect a difference in hunter-reported camera observations versus our observations for four of the six species recorded at pseudo-bear bait sites. Hunters were over nine times more likely to report photographing wolves and nearly one third as likely to report photographing mustelids. We observed a relationship between trapper survey-derived mustelid indices and the camera-derived index, but not for deer or wolves. Foremost, these results emphasize the need to further evaluate the utility of remote camera data derived from hunters. The widespread use of remote cameras by hunters, the low-cost of hunter surveys, and the potential to collect accurate community composition and occurrence/presence indices, points to the value of adding questions to hunter surveys regarding multiple species of interest.