1. Counting Animals from Space: Chapter Two Transitions from Captivity to Wild Places Scott Bergen & Eric Sanderson

2. Why Count Wildlife? Fundamental to Conservation Foundational to Population Studies Federal Programs Spend Millions of Dollars Annual to Count Animals

3. Nov. 10, 2004 10:52:45 am 35 people involved 21 keepers 15 Volunteers 28 Enclosures mapped for individual animal locations 300 Faux fur targets placed in 4 ‘habitats’ Digital Globe Inc ©

4. Ground –vs- Sky Digital Globe Inc ©

5. Information Shadow Digital Globe Inc ©

6. Tallying Identification by Species Logit (identified targets) = -3.666 + 0.019(Color) + 0.970(Size) - 0.230(VegHt) - 0.421(Shade).

7. National Elk Refuge. Jackson, WY

8. Counting Animals Most reliable estimate use transect with repeat measures Population estimates w/ standard deviation Findings usually extrapolated from small area to available habitat or other limiting feature Costly to count animals on ground Remote sensing rarely used (aerial imagery) Time and scale rarely match satellite scale & time Mismatch in terms of time and location in reference to identifying- verifying high spatial resolution satellite imagery

9. Why the National Elk Refuge? Reliable elk & bison congregations during winter Logistic regression equation shows good fit for size, color, vegetation and shadow Annual census of both elk and bison

10. Animal Count Comparisons Refuge level, elk (weekly), bison (annual) Ground census estimate @ time of satellite acquisition Panoramic photo estimate @ time of satellite acquisition Heads up digitizing estimate Object oriented estimate

11. Jackson Wyoming Access limited Freakin’ cold -20f Snow bleaching histogram of sensor Digital Globe Inc ©

12. Ground Census of Elk Group High Ground limited Limited by distance 1360 individuals 60/40 female- male ratio

13. Thick In Elk Digital Globe Inc ©

14. Panaramic Resesults Verified over 1,000 elk sex, position, direction position in less than 10 seconds Estimated 1070 individuals 679 females, 299 males, 89 ? Knew there were more but individuals > 1km were not identifiable as well as those totally blocked by other elk

15. 1503 individuals Heads up Digital Globe Inc ©

16. Object Oriented Approach Scale based segmentation > classification > revision >classification Hierarchical strutured Means both smaller and larger Digital Globe Inc ©

17. Segmentation Adds new dimensions to data Area, spectra, variability within polygons Adjacency Contextual Generates data Important to distinguish animals and differentiate types of animals

18. Initial Classification Good Results Identified 1540 individuals Misidentification within riparian areas Grouped elk in close proximity

19. Classification Refined with an area classifier 1482 individuals Further refinement, standing – sitting, elk vs bison, sexes in bison

20. Further refinement

21. Summary of Animal Counts Park Estimate: 4,900 elk, 951 bison Ground Estimate: 1,360 elk, 60/40 f/m Panoramic: 1,071 elk, 69/31 f/m Heads up: 1,503 elk 1 st Object Oriented Class: 1,540 Ob. Orient w/ Area: 1,480

22. Future Considerations