Aerial high definition video surveys – an advanced method to monitor marine mammals

Monitoring the abundance and distribution of marine mammals has traditionally been conducted by conventional observer based flights. These are now often replaced by an automated high definition survey technique which enables to video-survey at a resolution of two cm ground sample distance. It is advantageous over conventional visual aerial survey methods that the technique covers large monitoring areas flying at a survey altitude of 1800 ft. Detectability from small marine mammals does not decrease with the distance from the transect-line and the survey data can be validated at all times.