engleski

Monitoring of European pond turtle using remote techniques

Determining population density and regularly monitoring certain populations can be very time consuming and sometimes, not very efficient. For those reasons, we examine the efficiency of monitoring of turtle population in several ways, without the need to catch the animals in order to identify each individual. In the first part of our research in the Nature Park Kopački rit, in Croatia, we applied standardized method of catching European pond turtle, Emys orbicularis with the use of hand nets and traps. In total, 16 individuals were caught, and each caught individual was measured, sexed, photographed and marked with unique temporary mark, and afterwards released in the same place where it was caught. In the second part of our research, the same area was photographed using drone, and separately using tele-photo-lens, and the individual turtles recorded were compared to those from the first part of our research. Besides identification of already caught and marked individuals on photos obtained either from drone or by hand-held camera, we also used pattern of yellow marks on the head as a way of individual recognition. Application of distance monitoring of pond turtles, such as those examined in our research, should become a wide-used practice, since it does not require significant amount of time and effort, and also does not disturb the animals.

Emys orbicularis ; drone monitoring ; photo recognition

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