2.1 Survey tools

This section looks at the many different methods that can be used to run successful surveys; think of them as tools for your toolkit. Methods that work well on one species may not work at all for another, so consider your study species carefully.

Are you monitoring a colony of thousands of Sooty Terns, a scattered population of cryptic burrow-nesting Tahiti Petrel, or trying to find the breeding site for Fiji Petrel? The tropical Pacific is also a challenging environment in which to work, and it can be tough on survey teams and equipment.

There are good reasons for keeping it simple – making sure to choose only those methods that will reliably give you the results you want.

It is also vitally important to do a precheck on all of your equipment (e.g., acoustic sensors/recorders, trail cameras, drones) beforehand so it will operate without glitches once deployed. There is nothing more frustrating than getting out to a remote site only to discover a critical piece of equipment is malfunctioning.

Problems like that can have serious ramifications on your project’s budget, timeline, and effort if you have to go back and do it all again.