The fundamental metric that we need for assessing and monitoring the status of threatened or endangered species is the population size, i.e., we are typically interested in finding out how many individuals of a species currently exist. Unfortunately, estimating these numbers is a daunting task because most endangered animals– especially those that live in dense tropical forests– are rare, secretive and elusive. For animals that have individual markings (like the stripes of a tiger, spots of a cheetah, rosettes of … Read More