Picture of the day: Common Goldeneye, ISO 400; 143 mm; f/5.6; 1/320
Being able to understand and apply different census methods & techniques is an irreplaceable skill to any wildlife manager – perhaps today more than ever!
Fortunately, the hassle of summarizing some distant data by hand is left behind at your old Stat. 101 course, and is replaced by real, relevant data sets; real questions and viable, computerized methods of summarizing your data using anything from excel to specialist software such as Mark (nifty programme which can automate a huge range of different types of Mark- and recapture).
In the end, we end up mostly counting not the animals that we see – but the ones we don’t!