Video 4 | Animal Counting Toolkit | Field Protocols

September 2019 - This is Video 4 of 4 in our Animal Counting Toolkit Video Series

Knowing how many animals are in an area, and how they are distributed, is a central task in conservation science. This information is used to assess whether fisheries are catching more marine mammals in their fishing nets than the population can withstand, to guide spatial plans for protecting critical habitat, or assessing risk of human activities, such as windfarm construction or shipping lanes. The problem is that ship time is expensive. We partnered with Dr Randall Reeves (Okapi Wildlife Associates and IUCN Cetacean Specialist Group) and Dr Jeff Moore (NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Science Center) to build a toolkit for low-cost, small-boat surveys as a way to estimate marine mammal abundance in coastal regions where funding is scarce.

With partners from IUCN, NOAA, CyberTracker, University of St Andrews, BlueWater GIS, and others, we have compiled a simple, how-to guide to design and conduct a small-boat survey to estimate abundance and distribution of marine wildlife. The Animal Counting Toolkit approach is not a new method. Instead, it synthesizes lessons we've learned over the last 15 years or so in adapting scientific best practices to work on a small budget. It provides a gentle introduction to previously disparate advice on survey design, field methods, and analysis of line transect survey data.