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Louisiana Coastal Zone Survey

Louisiana Coastal Zone Survey

HiDef, in partnership with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) and Louisiana Delta Waterfowl, has completed data collection on a groundbreaking comparative study comparing traditional visual aerial survey methods for migratory waterfowl with HiDef’s bespoke Digital Aerial Survey (DAS) methodology.

The current survey method in Louisiana has State biologists flying at an altitude of 100 feet to count, identify and sex target waterfowl species. Flying visual surveys at such a low altitude carries inherent risks and does not result in auditable datasets. The HiDef method of DAS has survey aircraft flying at a higher (and much safer) 1650 feet while continuously recording high-definition video of all avian species encountered at 7 frames a second.  Given the State of Louisiana’s reliance on aerial survey counts to inform take limits on waterfowl hunting, it is imperative that administrators have the best and most accurate data available to them.

For this study HiDef and the LDWF aircraft flew the Louisiana Coastal Zone survey concurrently, with the HiDef aircraft flying in front at 1650 feet with the LDWF aircraft following at their usual 100-foot altitude.  Separation between aircraft ranged from 2-5 minutes, with an average separation time of approximately 3 minutes, or roughly 5 miles.  This relatively short separation time will allow for a robust comparison between visual and digital survey methods.

The goal of this study is to determine the accuracy of the traditional visual survey methodology when compared to digital aerial surveying, and to eventually calculate a correction factor to apply to historical visual survey data.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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