Daily abundance of Dall’s sheep peaks during late summer in a seasonal habitat of high‐management interest

Informing conservation and management decisions for habitats frequented by species of high interest often face the challenge limited resources conducting wildlife surveys. When surveys are focused on local areas or sparsely distributed species, it may also be difficult to obtain counts sufficient implementing abundance models that account imperfect detection. With replicated aerial collected within a 70.25-km2 portion Eastern Alaska Range, Alaska, USA, during summers 2013–2015, we estimated daily Dall’s sheep using two different estimation methods: Bayesian N-mixture Poisson regression models. We then compared estimates relative from both model types while paying special attention assumption closure individual survey units. obtained days, average number area period 1 July–1 October. Daily ewe followed quadratic pattern, with 10–20 ewes being our in early July late September, approximately 90 mid-August. Lamb-to-ewe ratios averaged 0.2 July–September, ram-to-ewe 0.4 until mid-August before increasing about 1.0 end September. These results indicate is an important habitat populations when lambs vulnerable predators. Accordingly, human recreation military training should minimized 1.5–3.0 months after parturition minimize disturbance. found displayed pattern increased magnitude as complexity increased. thus recommend priori approach construction balances risk overfitting modest data against fitting do not explain heterogeneity detection probability. Lastly, suggest simple improvements replicated, like reducing violations units, which can reduce bias density