Speaker
Description
The Galapagos marine iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) is an iconic & endemic endangered species of the Galapagos Archipelago, Ecuador. Despite many decades of monitoring, a full and detailed population-size estimate for this species has never been obtained. Better estimates are urgently needed to offer adequate protection for the 11 unique marine iguana subspecies against emergent threats, such as rapid urbanization, marine pollution, and climate change. We report here the development of a novel surveying method — employing drones, flown from boats — which is capable of providing high-quality aerial images for previously inaccessible locations. These images allow accurate counting of individuals, as well as identification of important habitats and breeding aggregations. To reduce effort in terms of analysis, we describe our innovative approach that crowd-sources the counting of iguanas via the world’s largest Citizen Science platform – Zooniverse.org. In a third step, we report the early stages of development to use Machine Learning in order to automate the processes of preparing and counting from the aerial images. With this new approach, we aim to obtain full and detailed population-size estimates for the entire range of the marine iguana by 2025. We believe this development will be key for facilitating conservation monitoring on the Galapagos in the future, but may also offer new ways to collect data, such as records of interannual movements, demographic parameters, indicators of population health and breeding behaviours that may prove crucial for efforts to understand the ecology and evolution of the species.
