Effectiveness and cost efficiency of monitoring mountain nyala in the Bale 1 Mountains National Park , Ethiopia

Due to the financial limitations faced by many protected areas today, identifying 1 cost-efficient monitoring protocols has become important in ensuring the long term sustainability 2 of conservation. The selection of monitoring protocols is usually driven by a range of factors, 3 such as widespread practice or accuracy with the cost efficiency of protocols rarely considered. 4 The mountain nyala, an endangered species, is endemic to the Ethiopian highlands. This species 5 has a high economic potential for local communities through tourism and trophy hunting, but the 6 expansion of human settlement is causing habitat degradation and fragmentation. A significant 7 proportion of the global mountain nyala population occur in the Bale Mountains National Park 8 (BMNP), thus the development of a long term monitoring protocol was identified as a priority. 9 Like many protected areas, the BMNP is operating well below its financial needs, hence 10 developing a robust, cost effective method that can detect changes in population size is 11 important. This study compared the effectiveness and cost efficiency of distance sampling and 12 total counts. Results showed that while the population estimates were relatively similar, total 13 counts underestimated population size but were more precise, had a greater power to detect 14 changes in population size and required only 12% of the resources needed compared to distance 15 sampling. We suggest that investing in initial comparisons of the effectiveness and costs of 16 different methods can result in significant cost savings, without jeopardizing the effectiveness of 17 a survey. 18 19 20