Use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for mark-resight nesting population estimation of adult female green sea turtles at Raine Island.

ABSTRACT: Nester abundance is a key measure of the performance of the world's largest green turtle rookery at Raine Island, Australia, and has been estimated by mark-resight counts since 1984. Nesters are first marked by painting their carapace with a longitudinal white stripe. Painted and unpainted turtles are then counted by a surface observer on a small boat in waters adjacent to the reef. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and underwater video may provide more cost-effective and less biased alternatives to this approach, but estimates must be comparable with historical estimates. Here we compare and evaluate the three methods. We found comparatively little variation in resighting probabilities between consecutive days of sampling or time of day, which supports an underlying assumption of the method

SUBMITTER: Dunstan A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7272060 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature