Outline details of the proposed aerial photographic survey at South Georgia for estimating breeding population sizes of land-based predators

This paper describes current research plans to estimate the size of land-based marine predator populations breeding at South Georgia with a view to providing critical data about interactions with commercial fisheries. The research will also develop methodologies that reliably assess trends in the abundance of these populations. The research will focus upon predator species that depend upon marine resources that are also harvested by commercial fisheries, principally Antarctic krill. It will concentrate upon those species where there is a high probability of interaction with fisheries and significant potential for resource competition under existing fisheries management policies. The research will also develop new methods that reliably estimate predator population sizes whilst minimising the level of disturbance associated with data collection.