Estimating brush-tailed rock-wallaby population size using individual animal recognition

Abstract

We undertook surveys of brush-tailed rock-wallabies ('Petrogale penicillata') at four colonies in Oxley Wild Rivers National Park, north-eastern New South Wales, with the aim of developing a technique based upon individual animal recognition that could be used to obtain robust population estimates for rock-wallaby colonies. We identified individuals on the basis of distinct morphological characters in each colony using visual observations, and used the data within a 'mark-recapture' (or sight-resight) framework to estimate population size. More than 37 h of observations were made over 10 sampling days between 18 May and 9 June 2010. We could identify 91.7% of all rock-wallabies that were independently sighted (143 of 156 sightings of 35 animals). A small percentage of animals could not be identified during a visit because they were seen only fleetingly, were in dense cover, or were partly obscured by rock. The number of new animals sighted and photographed declined sharply at the midpoint of the survey, and there was a corresponding increase in resighting of known individuals. Population estimates using the mark-recapture methodology were nearly identical to estimates of total animals seen, suggesting that this method was successful in obtaining a complete census of rock-wallabies in each colony.