Monitoring carnivore populations at the landscape scale: occupancy modelling of tigers from sign surveys

Karanth and colleagues applied occupancy modeling to landscape-scale tiger monitoring, using sign and detection surveys across large areas where camera-based density estimation everywhere would be impractical. By treating tiger presence as imperfectly detected and modeling occupancy as a function of habitat and prey covariates, they produced rigorous, spatially extensive estimates of where tigers occur and how that distribution relates to environmental drivers. The work demonstrated a tiered monitoring strategy in which intensive camera-trap density estimation at key sites is complemented by broad occupancy surveys across the wider landscape. This influential framework underlies large-scale tiger and carnivore monitoring programs. The paper is widely cited as a model for combining occupancy and density methods to monitor wide-ranging cats efficiently.