My pronouns are he/him.
I will be conducting essential fieldwork for my MBiol project with the Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Programme (EWCP) in the Bale Mountains, Ethiopia. There, I will be quantifying the accuracy and statistical power of population density estimates made using camera trapping, comparing these findings against traditional human observation methods currently in place. More specifically, I will make population density predictions at different monitoring intensities, to determine whether there is an optimal compromise between monitoring cost/effort and the quality of data it produces. The Ethiopian Wolf is endemic to Afroalpine habitat and exists in extremely small, isolated populations. Hence, optimising wildlife monitoring practices to inform data-driven decision making will prove imperative in their conservation, as there is very little margin for population declines. The EWCP has used camera traps in a variety of wildlife studies, mostly with Ethiopian Wolves, despite no such study looking to quantify their effectiveness, and this study takes advantage of accurate population abundance data, allowing reliable validation of camera trap estimates.
