For the first clip ever , an entire species has been count from space . Using the highest - firmness planet images available , scientists have countedthe figure of northern royal albatross living on removed island in the Pacific Ocean .
The research , led by theBritish Antarctic Survey , is not the first to apply artificial satellite images to count animals , but it is the first time that the total population of a mintage has been evaluate from space . Despite the bird having an impressive range of 64 million square kilometer ( 25 million square miles ) , millstone ( Diomedea sanfordi ) only breed in an orbit 8 substantial klick ( 3 solid mile ) , propagate over Chatham Island , New Zealand , making it middling straight - forward to get an estimate of the total global number of the metal money .
The result of the analysis , published in the journalIbis , ascertain there are actually fewer of the menace birds than antecedently think . While retiring field of study conducted by physically going out and counting them found that there were 5,700 nests , the figure obtained from the satellite trope puts this at around 3,600 .
The birds only make up a few pixels in the look-alike , but that is enough to count them . Fretwell et al . 2017
This humbled trope could be fora number of reasons . It could indicate that the population of northerly royal millstone is in downslope , with the skirt being intemperately hit by longline fishing and getting capture on sportfishing lines as they are cart behind boats . It could also simply be that this has been a big year gentility - overbold for the doll . The researchers go for that by ingeminate the analysis over a few years , they will get a good musical theme as to how the species is come .
Despite their limited breeding site , it has been hard to keep course of millstone numbers due to their utmost nesting habits . Not only are the ocean spate on which they go to sleep down on every year fair remote , being around 680 klick ( 422 miles ) off the eastern sea-coast of New Zealand , they are also incredibly difficult to get at . The sea heaps are surrounded by vertical cliffs , which mean any scientist that wants to count them has to literally rock climb up up there .
But when the US armed services allowed the highest - resolution images taken from infinite to be release , it turn over the researchers a fresh fashion to keep tabs on the bird . The satellite can capture objects as small as 30 cm ( 12 inches ) , signify that the big , livid mollymawk sit on peril , botany - free islands are actually fairly easy to see . All the researchers needed to do was get copy of the few stacks on which the population nests and weigh the white blob .
