Camera traps placed to detect predators underestimate prey densities

Mountain ungulates play a critical role in maintaining the health of ecosystems, making it important to monitor their populations. Since snow leopard populations are monitored using camera traps, there has been a possibility of using the bycatch data to study ungulate populations. With this, the study compared how camera trap-based methods placed both for snow leopards (bycatch data) and ungulate (directed survey) perform compared to field-based surveys (double-observer and Total counts) in estimating blue sheep population in the Indian trans-Himalaya. The results suggested that camera traps placed for predators, here the snow leopard, underestimate blue sheep densities. Therefore, it is important to have ungulate-focused survey methods to monitor their populations.