REAL LIFE NEWS: COUNTING ALBATROSSES FROM SPACE
by Hazed
Last week I told you how volcanoes were being monitored from space: http://www.ibgames.net/fednews/2017/170507/official05.html. This week, here’s information about how satellite images are used to count individual birds.
The Northern Royal albatross is an endangered bird which nests almost exclusively on rocky sea-stacks close to New Zealand’s Chatham Islands. These are very inaccessible (both because of their remoteness but also their steep vertical cliffs) so it has been extremely hard to appraise their numbers.
Now experts at the British Antarctic Survey are using high-resolution satellite images which capture features as small as 30cm across. Images of this detail have only recently become available outside the military and intelligence sectors.
The WorldView-3 satellite can see the nesting birds as they sit on their eggs, or as they guard newly hatched chicks. The birds may only show up as two or three pixels on an image, but their white plumage stands out against the surrounding landscape – so it’s literally a case of counting the dots.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-39797373
