Saints Talk: Counting critters by Professor Len Thomas

How can we tell which wildlife species are doing okay and which are of conservation concern? How can we tell if conservation measures are effective in restoring depleted populations? To answer these and similar questions, we need reliable estimates of population size and trends. However, obtaining these estimates is tricky given that many species live at low density over vast (often remote) areas, and are deliberately hard to spot.
In this talk, Len will highlight the work of the inter-disciplinary Centre for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modelling (CREEM) in developing methods for estimating wildlife population size, focussing on a method, distance sampling, that is used in thousands of studies worldwide from polar bears to chameleons, whales to songbirds. He will show how CREEM supports practitioners by providing free software and training, and how new data collection technology including remote cameras, microphones and even environmental DNA can potentially be harnessed to make surveys even more effective.