Opportunities and challenges for new technologies in seabird population monitoring

WorldView-3 30-cm resolution satellite image of Minami-kojima and Kita-kojima, Senkaku Islands, western North Pacific Ocean on 27 November 2020, with inset showing primary (P) and secondary (S) nest count areas of Short-tailed Albatrosses Phoebastria albatrus; ©2020 Maxar Technologies (read more here)

Morten Frederiksen (Department of Ecoscience, Aarhus University, Roskilde, Denmark) and colleagues have reviewed open access in the ICES Journal of Marine Science technological advances in monitoring seabird populations.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Monitoring of seabird population size and demography has for decades relied on observer-based methods. While such methods have allowed the accumulation of extensive, standardized time series, while typically involving both volunteer and professional observers, they often suffer from uneven coverage across species and locations, as well as limited replicability. Technological advances, in the form of, for example, visual and/or thermal imagery collected either by permanently situated automated cameras or remote-sensing technology, acoustic data loggers, or automated presence/absence biotelemetry systems, show great potential for overcoming the limitations of observer-based methods and extending coverage of monitoring programmes to more difficult circumstances and species. However, there are challenges and risks associated with the introduction of technology-based monitoring such as initial costs, data storage, post-processing of the large amounts of data, and potential alienation of experienced fieldworkers. We review the issues that agencies responsible for seabird monitoring should consider before introducing technology-based monitoring to complement existing methods, and we provide a set of recommendations and potential future research directions.”

Reference:

Frederiksen, M., Layton-Matthews, K., Bennett, S., Funder Castenschiold, J.H., Cruz-Flores, M., Edney, A.J., Fauchald, P., Franklin, K.A., Guímaro, H.R., Hereward, H.F.R., Johnston, D.T., Merkel, B., Molværsmyr, SW., Sauser, C., Snell, K.R.S. & Humphreys, E.M. 2025.  Opportunities and challenges for new technologies in seabird population monitoring.  ICES Journal of Marine Science, 82, doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsaf115.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 08 October 2025