7 | P a g e
Table 3 Summary of 2015 trailing activity
Species Easton Hyak/Sliver
Fir
Gold-
Creek
Price-
Noble
West
Price-
Noble
East
SnoPass
North
% of all
trailing
events
Coyote
- - 1 1 2 1 31%
Elk
2 - - 1 - - 19%
Mule deer
1 - - - - - 6%
Bobcat
1 - - 1 - - 13%
Raccoon
- - - - - 3 18%
Aplodontia
- - - - - 1 6%
Ambiguous
- - - - 1 - 6%
Observer reliability
This winter the project amended its observer reliability protocol to increase the sample size of
observations for review. Field teams photo documented every positive identification they made
in the field all of which were reviewed independently by two experts. Despite the short field
season, this doubled the sample size of observer reliability observations. Seventy nine
observations were able to be definitively identified by validators from documentation provided.
One definitive error was identified of these 79 observations. The single error this winter was of
a species undetected in previous years. Findings from this winter with a greatly expanded
sampling effort mirrored the results of past years and continue to suggest observer reliability is
high for the project. During the coming year we will be carrying out a further analysis of this
aspect of our project.
Table 4 Summary of 2015 Observer Reliability Results
2015 Total From All Years
Number of observations
100 187
Correct (3/4)
78 134
Likely Correct (2)
9 26
Incorrect (0)
1 2
Can not determine from photo (1)
12 25
Percent definitively correct
(excluding 1 and 2 from analysis)
98.7 98.5
Percent Definitively Incorrect
(excluding 1 and 2 from analysis)
1 1.1
Percent indeterminate (of total
observations)
12 13.3
Number of observers
9
Species identified
Beaver, Bobcat, Coyote, Elk, Mule
deer, Raccoon, River Otter
