Optimal Allocation of Sampling Effort for Monitoring a Harvested Mule Deer Population

Management of an ungulate population to maintain it at a desired level requires monitoring population size and vital rates to be able to harvest the population wisely. We present equations for the optimal allocation of resources for estimating total population size, recruitment rate of juveniles into the adult population, and juvenile and adult survival to minimize the variance of the adult female population size and the adult female population rate of change. These equations require information on the variance of the population growth process (process variance), expected sampling variance, and per unit costs for each of the 4 sampling procedures.