Knowledge of population dynamics is essential for managing and conserving wildlife. Traditional methods of counting wild animals such as aerial survey or ground counts not only disturb animals, but also can be labour intensive and costly. New, commercially available very high-resolution satellite images offer great potential for accurate estimates of animal abundance over large open areas. However, little research has been conducted in the area of satellite-aided wildlife census, although computer processing speeds and image analysis algorithms have vastly improved. A new paper explores the possibility of detecting large animals in the open savannah of Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya from very high-resolution GeoEye-1 satellite images. Click the link below to read more.

ITC – Animal populations counted using satellites for the first time.