The marine iguana is a charismatic and endemic species of the Galápagos Islands that is threatened with extinction an occurs in an area of occupancy estimated less than 500 km2. They are the world's only sea-going lizards and inhabit in the rocky coasts and intertidal zones. Their average generation length is five years for females and 12 years for males. Only big adult males dive offshore for feeding, while the rest feed in the intertidal zone.
Marine Iguanas have amazing adaptations like absorbing their own bone matter to survive hard times, and they inspired the creation of Godzilla. However, marine iguanas face a complex combination of threats due to human activities. The species consists of 11 subspecies, each of which is unique and important for the survival of the species as a whole. Since the marine iguana is endemic, it is not found anywhere else on earth (not even in zoos!). If it is lost from the Galápagos Islands, then it is lost forever.
Conservation authorities want to help, but the problem is that marine iguana colonies are very hard to reach, and so we have never been able to collect good estimates of how many marine iguanas are left and where exactly they can be found. Without this information, effectively conserving them is very difficult (if not impossible!), and we might be losing important populations or even whole subspecies without realizing it.
By using drones to survey the marine iguana populations, we can collect high quality images from which iguanas can be counted at a later stage. This means we survey much faster and don’t need to physically visit all the colonies. And because we can send the drones from boats, we can do this work with minimal disturbance to the delicate wildlife of the islands.
Through this work, we collect a huge number of images, and it would take our small team a long time to do all the counting. This is why we are asking for your help through our project on Zooniverse. By joining in, you are making an incredibly valuable contribution to preserving the unique wildlife of the Galapagos Islands. We are confident that our Zooniverse project will give us reliable estimates of marine iguana population sizes, but to prove it we will compare these counts with those from ground-based surveys; this will ensure that our work is scientifically rigorous. In addition, you can help us collect data on other species and interesting finds on the islands, and these results will be shared with other conservationists and scientists so that many endangered species can be helped.
