Penguin Watch Talk

Huge Adélie colony in the Danger Islands

  • Sitandslide by Sitandslide

    In the news (BBC), and the scientific report.

    As Dr. Tom Hart was involved, do you think we can look forward to a batch of pictures from there sometime soon? Adélies are always my favorite for how expressive they are... 😃

    Also, from the BBC article: "Once again, trained software was called upon to do the actual counting." \o/

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  • AvastMH by AvastMH moderator

    Great news isn't it @SitandSlide ! Thanks so much for posting this. It will be even more exciting if the marine protection area comes about. Smart Adelies. They picked a nice spot for sure. It will be interesting to see what reverberations this will have to the ever increasing size of the tourist industry. If you've been to Antarctica do you have a thought about that I wonder?

    I noticed that there was a comment about trained software too. All the time we have been marking penguins we've been teaching computers to count them too. Perhaps our (almost unconscious) efforts have paid off? In which case it's yet another 10 out of 10 for PenguinWatch volunteers. You're epic!

    I'll try to find out more. 😄

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  • gardenmaeve by gardenmaeve moderator

    As far as I know there are no cameras situated in this area...it isn't a Penguin Watch camera site. 😦 Sorry!

    From https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22313-w : "...We document a novel multi-modal survey comprised of ground surveys and imagery from both satellites and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) photographic surveys, the results of which were combined with historic aerial photographs to assess long-term change in the region." A UAV is also called a drone.

    From the BBC link http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43250744 : "... in December 2015, the team did manage to get on the ground to begin its count. And one of the most effective techniques was to deploy drones, which flew above the birds to make large mosaics of their nesting sites."

    We'll hope to be learning more specifics as time goes on. 😃

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  • AvastMH by AvastMH moderator

    Thanks @gardenmaeve . It would be interesting to know how far our computer-teaching has progressed. If time permits it might be possible to get some feedback I hope. 😃

    Another reference to the Danger Island Adelies has been sent in by Edyflwr - many thanks. This time it is from the Washington Post which might be easier for some of our volunteers to access.
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-secret-is-out-scientists-spot-penguin-super-colony-in-antarctica-1519984801

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