Comparison of Boat-based Surveys and Digital Aerial Surveys for Monitoring Sea Turtles
(Room Regency)
16 Oct 18
4:10 PM
-
5:35 PM
Tracks:
Siting, Wildlife & Environmental Monitoring
Sea turtles are of conservation concern worldwide, and accurate counts and distribution data are critical to inform management actions related to offshore wind energy development. We conducted two years of boat-based surveys and high resolution digital video aerial surveys (2012-2014) on the mid-Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), and compared the efficacy of these methods for surveying sea turtle populations. A total of 1,892 sea turtles were observed in digital aerial surveys and 117 from boat surveys. Survey type (aerial vs. boat) was a significant predictor of sea turtle occurrence and counts, as were latitude, water velocity, and season. After correcting boat-based density estimates to account for detectability bias, both methods captured broad seasonal patterns of abundance in sea turtles on the mid-Atlantic OCS. However, estimates derived from digital aerial surveys had much higher precision and provided a more robust dataset from which to characterize these patterns.