Drones a top tool for turtle talliers
RESEARCHERS have captured stunning footage from a drone surveying green turtles at Raine Island in the Great Barrier Reef.
The footage, from the world’s largest green turtle rookery, 620km northwest of the Cairns coastline, showed up to 64,000 green turtles around the island waiting to come ashore and lay clutches of eggs.
The survey was taken as part of the Raine Island Recovery Project.
Andrew Dunstan from the Department of Environment and Science said researchers had been investigating different ways of conducting turtle population surveys.
“New scientific research found that drones … were found to be the most efficient survey method,” Dr Dunstan said.
Previous population survey methods involved painting a white stripe down the green turtles’ shells when they were nesting on the beach.
“Trying to accurately count thousands of painted and unpainted turtles from a small boat in rough weather was difficult. Using a drone is easier, safer, much more accurate, and the data can be immediately and permanently stored,” Dr Dunstan said. “The ratio of unpainted and painted turtles allowed us to estimate the total population for last December to be 64,000 green turtles waiting to nest on the island.”
Research partner Richard Fitzpatrick from the Biopixel
Oceans Foundation said vesselbased counts were inaccurate.
“When we compared drone counts to observer counts, we found that we had underestimated the numbers in the past by a factor 1.73,” Mr Fitzpatrick said. “What previously took a number of researchers a long time can now be by one drone operator in under an hour.”
Great Barrier Reef Foundation
managing director Anna Marsden congratulated the researchers on their outstanding work and results.
“We’re seeing the world’s largest aggregation of green turtles captured in these extraordinary drone images that are helping to document the largest turtle numbers seen since we began the Raine Island Recovery Project,” she said.