Estimating impacts of poison operations using mark-recapture analysis and population viability analysis: an example with New Zealand robins (Petroica australis)
Several recent studies have used "roll calls"—searches for individually-marked birds—to assess impacts of aerial poison operations on non-target species. Roll calls have advantages over methods such as 5-minute bird counts, call counts, and dead body counts, but roll calls are based on the assumption that detection rates are 100%, or that detection rates are constant over time and space. They also require more than one group of birds, at a poisoned and unpoisoned site for example, for valid statistical comparisons.