Toward reliable population estimates of wolves by combining spatial capture-recapture models and non-invasive DNA monitoring

We are in debt to the staff of the Regional Government of Galicia for the administrative and logistical support, and all the rangers for their incredible work collecting wolf samples under the framework of the Spanish wolf monitoring program, promoted by the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment and the Autonomous Regions. J.V.L.B. was supported by a Ramon & Cajal research contract (RYC-2015-18932) from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness. R.G. was supported by research contract (IF/00564/2012) from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). We thank D. Castro and S. Lopes for lab assistance and P. Peru, A. Rivadulla and V. Sazatornil for field assistance. We thank two anonymous referees for their constructive comments on a previous version of this article. This work was partially supported by the project PTDC/BIA-EVF/2460/2014 (FCT). This is scientific paper 20 of the Iberian Wolf Research Team (IWRT).