Förslag till samordning av inventering av järv i Sverige och Norge

The Norwegian Directorate for Nature Management and the Swedish Environmental ProtectionAgency have decided that results from large carnivore monitoring in Norway and Swedenshould be coordinated and methods harmonised to the extent that is possible. This concernsthe choice of methods, quality control and data storage. In order to achieve this goal, speciesspecific Norwegian - Swedish working groups have been established to evaluate alternativesand come up with a proposal for coordinated monitoring activity.In this report the wolverine working group summarise their main proposals.The management authorities require that monitoring should be conducted at the correcttemporal and spatial scales. Ensuring that wolverine monitoring in Norway and Swedenis conducted in a comparable manner requires coordination at three levels - local, regionaland national / Scandinavia. Therefore the working group recommend that Swedenestablish a national coordination body along the lines of the Norwegian Rovdataunit. An important role of such a body is to ensure that results from monitoring arecomparable between countries, regions and years. This can be ensured by developinginstructions and protocols and ensuring that they are followed by coordinating fieldstaff, regional authorities and national authorities.Annual monitoring of wolverine natal dens (proof of reproduction) in all of their distributionrange in Norway and in the reindeer husbandry area of Sweden should continue astoday. The working group recommend that reproduction should also be monitored inthe parts of Sweden outside the reindeer husbandry area when conditions permit, althoughthe main form of monitoring here should be conducted using faecal DNA. DNAstudies can serve to identify areas where den documentation could be prioritised.The working group present recommendations for standardised criteria for evaluatingthe evidence for reproduction, as well as suggestions for standardised terms and definitionsDetailed instructions should be produced in both Swedish and Norwegian. These instructionsshould also clarify issues related to roles and responsibilities of local, regionaland national actors.DNA based monitoring should continue across the whole of the wolverine distributionarea in Norway and the collection period should be extended from January 1st to June1st.DNA based monitoring should expand in Sweden and cover all of the wolverine distributionarea. The collection of scats on snow for DNA analysis should be mainly conductedin the same way in Sweden as in Norway - i.e. systematically across the wholecountry.The effort and coverage of wolverine monitoring needs to be better documented thantoday. The amount of search effort should be documented using track-log on GPSunits. Everybody taking part in field work should eventually be able to upload theirtrack-logs to a database such as Rovbase.