| Over the past decade, there have been many local and regional monitoring efforts for rare carnivores. Yet, these species persist in populations or meta-populations that extend to scales well beyond individual management units (e.g., project area, hunting district, National Forest, state). Although local efforts provide valuable information about presence of individuals, such efforts incorporated within a biologically-driven and statistically-robust monitoring plan would increase capacity to understand population trends. Prior technology restricted efficient large-scale monitoring of mesocarnivores, as it can be incredibly difficult to detect such species that often persist at low densities and that move extensively within large home ranges. We will describe the development a collaborative, multi-partner effort to create a comprehensive, scientifically defensible, broad-scale, multi-species mesocarnivore monitoring plan. Our vision is based on flexible survey methods, executed purposely at multiple scales, with a state-space occupancy modeling framework which can describe the status and trends of rare carnivores across states and regions. Our plan will provide a broader-scale context to make better informed conservation strategies and decisions, help fulfill legal requirements (e.g., the Forest Service's 2012 Planning Rule), and help ensure the persistence of these rare species by providing predictive spatially-explicit information to alert biologists to species-level trends. |