Yang Liu (l) and Vikrant Shah, from North Eastern University prepare a drone to fly over Elephant Island.
The scientists use machine learning to do an automated count of penguin colonies on the island. The drone counts are later compared to the manual counts complied by their colleagues.
Drones are a less invasive and often faster method of counting penguin colonies.
Elephant Island is home to one of the world’s largest Chinstrap Penguin populations, yet it has only been ornithologically surveyed once in 1971, by a British Joint Services expedition.
To understand how penguin populations are faring, a census has been organised by researchers from Stony Brook University, Northeastern University and Greenpeace to study the impact of climate change on fragile chinstrap penguin colonies on Elephant Island in Antarctica.

(This picture was taken in 2020 during the Antarctic leg of the Pole to Pole expedition under the Dutch permit number RWS-2019/40813)