This book addresses issues of monitoring populations of tigers ungulate prey species and
habitat occupancy with relevance to similar assessments of large mammal species and general
biodiversity. It covers issues of rigorous sampling modeling estimation and adaptive
management of animal populations using cutting-edge tools such as camera-traps genetic
identification and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applied under the modern statistical
approach of Bayesian and likelihood-based inference. Of special focus here are animal survey
data derived for use under spatial capture-recapture occupancy distance sampling
mixture-modeling and connectivity analysees. Because tigers are an icons of global conservation
in last five decades enormous amounts of commitment and resources have been invested by tiger
range countries and the conservation community for saving wild tigers. However status of the
big cat remains precarious. Rigorous monitoring of surviving wild tiger populations continues
to be essential for both understanding and recovering wild tigers. However many tiger
monitoring programs lack the necessary rigor to generate the reliable results. While the
deployment of technologies analyses computing power and human-resource investments in tiger
monitoring have greatly progressed in the last couple of decades a full comprehension of their
correct deployment has not kept pace in practice. In this volume Dr. Ullas Karanth and Dr.
James Nichols world leaders in tiger biology and quantitative ecology respectively address
this key challenge. The have collaborated with an extraordinary array of 30 scientists with
expertise in a range of necessary disciplines - biology and ecology of tigers prey and
habitats advanced statistical theory and practice computation and programming practical
field-sampling methods that employ technologies as varied as camera traps genetic analyses and
geographic information systems. The book is a 'tour de force' of cutting-edge methodologies for
assessing not just tigers but also other predators and their prey. The 14 chapters here are
lucidly presented in a coherent sequence to provide tiger-specific answers to fundamental
questions in animal population assessment: why monitor what to monitor and how to monitor.
While highlighting robust methods the authors also clearly point out those that are in use
but unreliable. The managerial dimension of tiger conservation described here the task of
matching monitoring objectives with skills and resources to integrate tiger conservation under
an adaptive framework also renders this volume useful to wildlife scientists as well as
conservationists.
