Michael Vernon Clawson

Although the wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo; hereafter, turkey) is one of the most popular game species in the United States, there is no consensus on how best to monitor turkey populations. Harvest data are readily available to state wildlife agencies but are often not coupled with other datasets (e.g., hunter effort) for demographic assessments...

Statistical population reconstruction develops an integrated likelihood model that incorporates age-at-harvest composition, harvest totals, hunter effort, and auxiliary data on survival, harvest, or abundance to model demographics of harvested populations. Each statistical population reconstruction model is handcrafted to account for varying levels...

Historically, management agencies in the United States have monitored most game populations through an ad hoc approach which combines indices, harvest data, hunter surveyed data, and occasional demographic evaluation. However, changing management priorities and increased scrutiny require more informative and defensible means of monitoring harvested...

Long-term estimates of abundance can be useful in elucidating wildlife population and hunter dynamics as well as other potential factors affecting populations. We used estimated vulnerability coefficients from a statistical population reconstruction (SPR) analysis (1996–2010), along with a 50-year time series of harvest and hunter-effort data to re...

Recently, statistical population models using age-at-harvest data have seen increasing use for monitoring of harvested wildlife populations. Even more recently, detailed evaluation of model performance for long-lived, large game animals indicated that the use of random effects to incorporate unmeasured environmental variation, as well as second-sta...

Although statistical population reconstruction (SPR) provides a flexible framework for estimating demographics of harvested populations using age-at-harvest data, that information alone is insufficient. Auxiliary data are needed to ensure all model parameters are estimable and to improve the precision and accuracy of the estimates. We examined the...

The National Park Service (NPS) and other land management agencies have interest in managing bison herds under "natural" conditions; yet demographic features of natural populations are not well described. One solution to this issue involves the analysis of historical bison (Bison spp.) jump data. We conducted a literature search of archeological da...

Statistical population reconstruction can be a valuable tool for monitoring the status and trends of game populations at large spatial scales using age-at-harvest data. Despite their utility and increasing use in demographic studies, it is necessary that these models be evaluated before their results are applied. We recommend practitioners evaluate...

Background: Age-at-harvest data are among the most commonly collected, yet neglected, demographic data gathered by wildlife agencies. Statistical population construction techniques can use this information to estimate the abundance of wild populations over wide geographic areas and concurrently estimate recruitment, harvest, and natural survival r...

Estimating the dynamics of furbearer populations is challenging because their elusive behavior and low densities make observations difficult. Statistical population reconstruction is a flexible approach to demographic assessment for harvested populations, but the technique has not been applied to furbearers. We extended this approach to furbearers...