Líffræðifélag Íslands - biologia.is
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2021
Erindi/veggspjald / Talk/poster V19
Höfundar / Authors: Valerie Chosson ( 1), Björn Darri Sigurðarson(1), Guðjón Már Sigurðsson (1), Sverrir Daníel Halldórsson (1) Christophe Pampoulie (1), Gísli Arnór Víkingsson (1)
Starfsvettvangur / Affiliations: 1 . Hafrannsóknastofnun - Marine and Freshwater research institute of Iceland
Kynnir / Presenter: Valerie Chosson
Photo identification is widely used in science as an efficient, non-invasive, and relatively cheap method to study wild animals. It is based on the identification of a unique animal from a photograph of one distinctive and easily observed body feature. This method is similar to traditional tagging methods but is simple enough to use data input from citizen science. Scientists compare these photographs to match one another and assign to an individual a series of observations and other relevant data such as date, location, activity, and social interaction. Such data are used to monitor the animal’s behavior, their movements, their population/sub population sizes, and help developing a comprehensive population conservation strategy. As leader in the use of Photo Identification in Iceland since the 1980´s, the MFRI (Marine and Freshwater Research Institute) has developed a very flexible and efficient system associating a database and a custom-made matching tool in 2011. This unique system can be adapted to ANY species suitable for Photo-ID studies Humpback whales have been chosen as the first species to be gathered into the MFRI database. To date, the ISMN Catalog gather over 1,500 unique individuals observed over a span of 4 decades (since 1982) in Icelandic waters. In collaboration with many partners both nationally and internationally, institutes, private companies, and amateur naturalists the ISMN catalog has contributed to 8 international projects