Monitoring standards for large carnivores in Europe: Agreements on objectives, categorization of data, criteria for data interpretation and quality levels of outputs

The study highlights that monitoring large carnivores is challenging due to their low detectability, requiring intensive fieldwork to obtain reliable, comparable data. To address inconsistencies among countries, the authors developed harmonised monitoring standards within the LCIE framework to improve the robustness of population size and distribution estimates for major European carnivore species. These standards include species-specific data categorization, unified interpretation criteria, and defined quality levels (Q1–Q3) based on factors such as sampling design, population size, and spatial coverage. The aim is to enable consistent, science-based transboundary assessments that support coordinated management of large carnivore populations across Europe.