Conservation Status and Volunteer Monitoring of Maine Owl Populations

Hodgman, Thomas; Gallo, Susam

'Innovative strategies are needed to help agencies respond to an ever-increasing public demand for nongame conservation. Agencies and nonprofit organizations alike are increasingly using volunteers to meet this demand. Aside from the obvious benefits to conservations (i.e., expanded data collection at reduced cost), volunteers gain personal satisfaction and empowerment when they contribute to broad-scale conservation programs. The objectives of this project were four-fold: to collect data on abundance and distribution of owls throughout a large part of Maine, to evaluate potential survey methods and the influence of environmental conditions, to evaluate the effectiveness of monitoring, and to build a network of volunteers capable of carrying out these objectives and a future long-term monitoring program.' Considerable variability in volunteer effort and methodological fallow through made data use on a statewide basis difficult, and certain parameters such as detectability were used with caution. The data provided was useful and provided a glimpse into owl population that otherwise would not have been attained. Modifications to the methods were and will continue to be made in order to develop a more solid data source, but in the meantime, this project has been seen by other states as a potential model for use. For ANP specific commentary see also =Acadia National Park, Determining the Methods and Strategy Using Volunteers in Monitoring Maine's Owl Population Acadia National Park's Volunteer Role Winter 2000-2001 /STUDY LOCATIONS:/ /ACADIA NATIONAL PARK/