Young citizen sensors for managing large carnivores: Lessons from 40 years of monitoring a brown bear population

• Published in: Conservation Science and Practice
• Main Authors: Takinami, Hiroto, Ishiyama, Nobuo, Hino, Takafumi, Kubo, Takahiro, Tomita, Kanji, Tsujino, Muku, Nakamura, Futoshi
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: John Wiley & Sons
• Subjects: brown bear; citizen science; large carnivores; population recovery; spring cull; Ursus arctos yesoensis; volunteer monitoring; 650; Ursus arctos
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2115/82724; https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.484

Large carnivores encounter various threats from human activities. Population trend detection among carnivore species and implementation of management policies based on monitoring are urgently needed for human-carnivore coexistence. We demonstrate how young citizens have helped reveal long-term trends in brown bear field sign detection rates following a government policy change (i.e., abolishment of the spring cull). We used a 40-year dataset of field signs collected by volunteer college students in northern Japan and analyzed the resulting data using state-space models. The spring cull had a significant negative impact on the number of grids with field signs; the detection rate under spring cull pressure declined from 19 to 0% between 1976 and 1990. However, abolishment of the spring cull in 1990 had a significant positive effect on the number of grids with field signs; the detection rate increased from 0 to 13% between 1991 and 2015, suggesting that the government policy change strongly affected the threatened brown bear population. Structured monitoring schemes, simplicity and/or attractiveness in monitoring targets may ensure the data quality and duration of citizen-based monitoring. These findings suggest a high potential for engaging college students in developing sustainable monitoring of large carnivore populations and in supporting wildlife management.