Assessment of ungulate monitoring techniques in Iran (DoE, Iran, 2015-2016)

Reliable estimates of ungulate population sizes and their trends are often missing for Asian mountainous areas. This is due to methodological difficulties arising from remoteness and ruggedness of habitats, overall low detection probability of some species, low population sizes and lack of robust and suitable monitoring plans and designs. The Iranian Department of Environment (DoE) has initiated the National Ungulates Monitoring Techniques Assessment Project (NUMP) to identify the most suitable monitoring methods for several ungulate species in Iran. In particular, the two wild sheep species (Transcaspian urial Ovis vignei and mouflon Ovis orientalis), bezoar goat (Capra aegagrus), goitered gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa), chinkara or jebeer gazelle (Gazella bennettii), red deer (Cervus elaphus maral) and roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) have been prioritized because of their status and/or lack of suitable methods. The project aims at standardization of monitoring protocols for these species complying with a sufficient level of precision to achieve reliability, acceptability by rangers (who mainly conduct the surveys) and cost-efficiency. The methods are tested in Kavir National Park, Ghamishlou National Park, Golestan National Park and Central Alborz Protected Area.

Project team

Mahmood Soofi
Arash Ghoddousi
Lukas Egil

Consultants

Prof. Dr. Matthias Waltert
Workgroup on Endangered Species, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany

Dr. Raul Valdez
Department of Fishery and Wildlife Sciences , New Mexico State University, USA

Dr. John Linnell
Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, Trondheim, Norway

Dr. Jim Sanderson
Small Wild Cat Conservation Foundation, USA
Wildlife Conservation Network, USA