Foto: Paulo Ott / GEMARS

Aerial monitoring of franciscana activity is an important tool in assessing the species’ populations. “Aerial Monitoring to Gauge Franciscana Abundance and Distribution in Management Area I”, by Grupo de Estudos de Mamíferos Aquáticos do Rio Grande do Sul (GEMARS), performs coastal fly-overs to spot franciscana pods and estimate population density and numbers along the coasts of Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo. Other core activities include refining the factors for correcting aerial estimates and assessing and examining species distribution and habitat-use in FMA I.

The method used on these flyovers is distance sampling, and the estimates obtained can be used to calculate the risk of decline and extinction of the study populations.

The initiative is supported by the Franciscana Conservation Project, of which Funbio is financial manager.