[Babase] Re: Clarification on collar check demography notes

Susan Alberts alberts at duke.edu
Thu May 7 22:56:26 EDT 2009


Hi Niki,

Thanks so much for this very clear and helpful email. I am copying  
this to the babase mailing list as a record of how we made these  
decisions. See below:

On May 7, 2009, at 1:28 PM, Niki Learn wrote:

> I’ve now gone through the other group notes for Viola’s group to  
> search for 2008 census data that can be extracted from the collar  
> check encounters.  I found three main types of entries.
>
> 1)      Entries where the team mentions that they checked the  
> signals but apparently did not actually see the individual baboons.   
> In some cases the group was within site and the team could tell by  
> signal strength that the individuals were nearby so they assumed  
> they were within the group.  I ignored all of these entries.

yes, this makes sense.

> 2)      Entries concerning members of individuals from nonstudy  
> groups where they seem to have actually seen the individual baboons  
> – this usually includes mention of how the baboon and or collar  
> condition looks.  Sometimes other members of the group are also  
> noted as being seen (and these were, for the most part, already  
> included in the 2008 other group notes though the collared  
> individuals were often left out).  Example from Viola’s group appear  
> below.  Should I leave out references to collars entirely or is it  
> okay to leave them in?

Fine to leave them in, I think.

> Usually when collars are put on, this has appeared as a demography  
> note along with the darting of the individual.  Perhaps it would  
> make sense to only note when the collar is put on and when it is  
> lost (see KER) or removed?

I think it is fine to just leave in the comments about the collars if  
Demog Notes will accept this kind of info fairly readily without  
getting confused. Will it? I don't recall the format and have not  
looked in the manual while composing this, sorry. Leaving the comments  
about the collars provides context for why the comment is there, which  
I always think is useful.  But, it's not required, so if it makes more  
sense from the Demog Notes perspective to strip out the collar info,  
that is OK too.

> 3)      Entries concerning members of individuals from a study group  
> that was encountered usually when they were near another group being  
> censused.  In these cases, the team stopped specifically to check on  
> the collared individuals to make sure they and the collars were  
> doing well.  No other baboons are identified in these notes.  I  
> think all the ones I’ve seen so far are females with Catherine’s GPS  
> collars so this does not really add census information since we  
> pretty much know these individuals are with the group anyway.  My  
> inclination then is to also ignore these collar checks.

YES I agree.

> The only reason I might include them is that there is often  
> information about group locations/interactions attached to the  
> individual and we do not currently have a means of incorporating  
> this information when there are no individuals mentioned (but it is  
> included in demog notes when individuals are mentioned).  Is it  
> worth including these census points for that group information or  
> are we planning to (eventually) incorporate that data more formally?

I think that for the GPS-collared females, we only want to include the  
demog note if it involves a change in the female's status (e.g., from  
alive to dead). I would not include these in demog notes.
>
> WAB
> 2008-12-06
> 6
> 1.22
> WAB seen (or only heard from afar in the large subgroup?) in a small  
> Ositeti subgroup SE of Nado Soito at 1128 (gps readings in other  
> group notes).  They definitely saw Latin and said LAW’s collar  
> “looked” good but I wasn’t sure if they saw or just listened to  
> their collars WAB & WIV – a few days later they and LAW were with  
> the large subgroup and LAT was far away (presumably still with the  
> small subgroup).  Should I just ignore if I am not certain they were  
> seen?

Hhmm. Probably yes. The issue is, that for a VHF collar, the collar  
could be signalling and the animal could be dead. It is unlikely, and  
in these cases we know the animal is still alive, so it is artificial  
to "pretend" that we don't know, but for consistency's sake I would be  
inclined to include the demog note when it's clear they saw the animal.

Thanks again,

Susan

>

--------------------------------------------------------
Susan Alberts, Dept of Biology, Duke University, Box 90338, Durham NC  
27708, 919-660-7272 (Ph), 919-660-7293 (Fax)







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