Population Surveys (ground and aerial) on Nesting Beaches

Abstract

Nesting beach surveys are the most widely implemented monitoring tool in use by the global sea turtle community and are an important component of a comprehensive program to assess and monitor the status of sea turtle populations. These assessments are necessary to evaluate the effects of recovery and conservation activities which are being implemented at all life history stages. Appropriately designed nesting beach surveys, in concert with studies of nesting females (see Alvarado and Murphy, this volume; Balazs, this volume; Owens, this volume) and nest success (see Miller, this volume), can provide information relative to the number of nests deposited annually, the number of nesting females that are reproductively active annually, and annual nest productivity. Nesting beach surveys, as discussed in this chapter, refer to ground and/or aerial surveys conducted to gather information on the number of nesting and non-nesting emergences occurring on a non-arribada beach. Readers contemplating population surveys on mass nesting beaches should consult Valverde and Gates, this volume.