Abstract
Assessing changes in local populations is the key to understanding the temporal dynamics of animal populations, evaluating management effectiveness for harvested or endangered species, documenting compliance with regulatory requirements, and detecting incipient change. For these reasons, population monitoring plays a critical role in animal ecology and wildlife conservation. Changes in abundance are the typical focus, although changes in reproductive or survival rates that are the characteristics of individuals, or other population parameters, also are monitored. Consequently, many researchers and managers devote considerable effort and resources to population monitoring. In doing so, they generally assume that systematic surveys in different years