Improving density estimates for elusive carnivores: sex-specific detection and movement in SCR

Sollmann and colleagues demonstrated that ignoring sex differences in movement and detectability biases carnivore density estimates, using jaguar camera-trap data from central Brazil. Because male jaguars range more widely and are detected differently than females, a single homogeneous detection model misrepresents the population. They fit spatially explicit capture-recapture models with sex-specific parameters for the spatial scale of movement and baseline detection, producing more accurate, less biased density estimates. The work highlighted individual heterogeneity as a critical and tractable issue in SECR, showing how covariate-structured detection improves inference for elusive cats. It became an influential template for incorporating sex and other individual covariates into felid density models and is widely cited in carnivore monitoring methodology.