| Summary: | InNorway, Sweden and Finland moose Alces alces hunting teams areoften employed tosurvey occupied beaver (Castor fiber and C.canadensis) lodges while hunting. Results may beused toestimate popula-tion density ortrend, orforissuing harvest permits. Despite the method's increasing popularity, theerrors involved have never been identified. Inthis study wel) compare hunting-team counts ofoccupied lodges with total counts, 2) identify thesources oferror between counts and 3)evaluate themethod's manage-ment potentia1. The study was conducted inBøTownship (266 km2), Telemark County, Norway during 1995. Hunters reported the number ofoccupied lodges seen daily while hunting moose (25 September-31 October). Teams (n = 12) under-counted occupied lodges inthe township by62 % because l) the prob-ability of observing anoccupied lodge within areas actually hunted onwas 0.77,2) 37 % of themoose-hunting units were nothunted onand 3)21 %of theoccupied lodges occurred in cultivated landscapes outside ofmoose-hunting units. Hunters had difficulty distinguishing between occupied and unoccupied lodges. Measures ofprecision and bias should bedeterrnined before using themethod forpractical man-agement. Moose-hunting team surveys may bebetter suited forobtaining indexes ofpopulation change
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