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Volunteers to Gather Data
Journal
Biological
Conservation - Volume
113, Issue 2 , October 2003, Pages 189-197
Authors
Chris Newman,
Christina D. Buesching and David W. Macdonald from the WildCRU at Oxford
University
Abstract
Validating mammal monitoring methods and assessing the performance
of volunteers in wildlife conservation
.Many conservation organisations rely heavily on
volunteers, and the government often relies on them to achieve tasks for
which funding is insufficient—for example, the monitoring of trends in
biodiversity on a national scale. Thus, it is critical to deploy
non-professionals effectively. In this study we validated and calibrated
the data collected by 155 volunteers, assisting with mammal monitoring
at Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire, between April 2000 and December 2001.
Tasks included small mammal trapping and handling, surveying and censusing for badgers, estimating deer population sizes from
dropping counts, and transect surveys for mammal field signs. We analysed the
effects of age, gender, previous experience, physical fitness and aptitude on
volunteer performance using quantitative measures and qualitative scores. We
found that (1) techniques that could be taught to volunteers without lengthy or
specialist training were sufficiently accurate to yield reliable data, (2) with
approximately half a day of training in each task, volunteers could produce
reliable data, verified by professionals, and (3) volunteer teams brought
considerable time savings to many tasks, compared with a single professional
researcher. Our analyses show that physical fitness was a significant predictor
of a volunteer's ability to perform tasks well and, in our particular sample, a
male-bias in volunteer aptitude was apparent in some tasks. Previous experience
as a conservation volunteer did not enhance performance over that of novices nor
did age have any effect on volunteers’ ability. The overall veracity of
volunteer data compared well with data collected using more specialist methods
or collected by professional researchers using the same method. Volunteers
required more time per task and, while they showed a tendency to underestimate
population sizes, their results were consistent. Additionally, the programme
helped to raise the environmental awareness of volunteers and their
understanding of woodland ecology.
Keywords
Earthwatch; Volunteers; Monitoring; Calibration;
Validation
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