Lure sticks as a method to detect pine martens Martes martes

Marten species are usually surveyed by trapping, snow tracking or cameratrapping with baits on trees. While testing the efficiency of a monitoring scheme for wildcats Felis silvestris silvestris in north-western Switzerland, we noticed that martens are attracted by lure sticks scented with valerian. On these sticks, the animals leaved some hairs that allowed us to identify the genus Martes by microscopic analysis. Additionally, the animal can be identified on pictures made by a camera trap posed close to the lure stick. In this paper, we compared the efficiency of different methods to find the most appropriate one in order to survey the pine marten Martes martes (Linnaeus, 1758) in Switzerland. For the method of valerian lure sticks we estimated a detectability of 0.08 per 14 days during the whole year. The detectability raised, when we applied American Hawbaker’s marten lure instead of the valerian tincture. In addition, the detectability was higher during the period April to June (p=0.2) compared to the whole year. If we identified the pine marten on the lure stick with pictures from the camera traps we reached a detectability of 0.21 during the whole year. Using only camera traps with baits on trees we could not take any picture of a pine marten.