Research Article Vantage Point Counts and Monitoring Roe Deer MARCO ZACCARONI , 1 University of Florence, Department of Biology, Via Madonna del Piano 6, I-50019 Florence, Italy FILIPPO DELL’AGNELLO, University of Florence, Department of Biology, Via Madonna del Piano 6, I-50019 Florence, Italy GIULIA PONTI, University of Florence, Department of Biology, Via Madonna del Piano 6, I-50019 Florence, Italy FRANCESCO RIGA, ISPRA - Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, Via V. Brancati 48, I-00144 Rome, Italy CHIARA VESCOVINI, University of Siena, Department of Economics and Statistics, Piazza S. Francesco 8, I-53100 Siena, Italy LORENZO FATTORINI, University of Siena, Department of Economics and Statistics, Piazza S. Francesco 8, I-53100 Siena, Italy ABSTRACT Vantage point counts (VPCs) are adopted to estimate the densities of roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) populations for harvest management. Thus, counts should be performed only within blocks without woodlands where it is possible to relate counts to block sizes. Alternatively, if VPCs are simply carried out on all blocks in a study region, the expectations of total counts could be used as relative abundance indices. In most cases, surveying all blocks is too demanding because of the number of observers required, time, and organization. Therefore, VPCs are performed only on a portion of the blocks, and relative abundance indices are estimated from these counts. If the blocks are selected by means of probabilistic sampling schemes, then statistically sound estimators of total count expectations can be adopted. Therefore, the estimation of the sampling errors, construction of confidence intervals, and assessment of change are possible, together with a post hoc power analysis for evaluating the probability of failing to detect a change in the expectations. Our objective in this study is to consider sampling strategies that allow the performance of all these statistical steps and to check the performance of these strategies on a hunting district located in Tuscany, Italy, in which all the blocks were surveyed in 2013 and 2014. The results provide evidence of the imprecision of the estimators. Even for large sampling fractions of 40–50%, the relative standard errors never decreased below 20%, and the corresponding powers in detecting a change of 30% at a level a ¼ 0:05 were <0.65. Our results highlight the need for efficient and robust alternative strategies. Ó 2017 The Wildlife Society. KEY WORDS area sampling, Capreolus capreolus, change detection, Horvitz-Thompson estimation, relative abundance indices, statistical power. In the last century, cervids increased in abundance and distribution in North America and Europe (Gill 1990, Putman et al. 2011) because of the increase of wooded areas, the reduction of extensive grasslands, changes in wildlife manage- ment techniques, and reintroductions (Gill et al. 1996, Cederlund et al. 1998, Carnevali et al. 2009). In Europe, the roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) is the most widespread wild ungulate (Apollonio et al. 2010), which is adapted to a wide variety of environments and land cover types and shows a high level of flexibility and success (Linnell et al. 1998). The roe deer is important from an ecological point of view as prey for large carnivores and as a hunted species for humans (Putman et al. 2011). However, population growth has resulted in political and economic social conflicts because of damage to crops and to forestry operations (Cederlund et al. 1998, Putman and Moore 1998). The estimate of the size and structure of populations of deer is the base knowledge on which to resolve conflicts among forest managers, wildlife managers, and hunters by modifying harvest levels or silvicultural systems (Radeloff et al. 1999, Vospernik and Reimoser 2008). The choice of a method for population monitoring depends on the habitat characteristics, management objectives, costs, and practical constraints (Mayle and Staines 1998). In Europe, several approaches are used to estimate the abundance of deer populations. Most of them are considered by Morellet et al. (2011). Vantage point counts (VPCs) are used in many European countries including Belgium, Netherlands, Portugal, Scotland, Hungary, and Slovakia to estimate density (Morellet et al. 2011). VPCs are the most popular census method in Italy to estimate roe deer densities in areas where hunting is allowed and the landscape is <50% forest (Meriggi et al. 2008, Raganella Pelliccioni et al. 2013). The wide application of VPCs in Europe is due to their low costs because of the use of volunteering hunters. Received: 30 October 2016; Accepted: 4 September 2017 1  E-mail: marco.zaccaroni@unifi.it The Journal of Wildlife Management; DOI: 10.1002/jwmg.21385 Zaccaroni  Monitoring Roe Deer 1