The standards for the monitoring of wolf, lynx and bear in Germany (Kaczensky et al. 2009, Reinhardt et al. 2015), hereafter named monitoring standards, categorise data on the basis of their verifiability. This categorisation refers to the SCALP criteria, which have been developed in the framework of the project “Status and Conservation of the Alpine Lynx Population” (SCALP) for the transnational lynx monitoring in the Alps. These SCALP criteria have been adapted to wolf and bear and to the circumstances in Germany. The letter C stands for “Category”, the numbers 1 – 3 define the verifiability of hints.

C1: clear evidence = hard facts that clearly verify the presence of the respective animal species (live capture, animal found dead, genetic evidence, photograph, telemetry data points)

C2: confirmed hint = hint (e.g. track or kill) that has been confirmed by an experienced person to originate from wolf, lynx or bear. The experienced person itself can conduct an assessment of the hint in the field or review and validate conclusive documentation accomplished by another person.

C3: unconfirmed hint = all hints that could neither be confirmed nor excluded from originating from wolf, lynx or bear through an experienced person due to insufficient information. This comprises all sightings without proof in the form of a photograph, including sightings through experienced persons; all hints that are too old, insufficiently or incompletely documented, hints that do not provide enough information (e.g. in case of tracks) or that are insufficient for confirmation due to other reasons. Category C3 can be divided into sub-categories such as “high probability” and “low probability”.

False: False report = hint for which can be excluded that it originates from the respective species.

k.B.: keine Bewertung möglich (German for „assessment not possible”) = hints that cannot be assessed du to missing information even on the minimum level, e.g. sightings of kills or tracks.