Novel approaches for quantifying density and distributions could help biologists adaptively manage wildlife populations, particularly if methods are accurate, consistent, cost-effective, rapid, and sensitive to change. Such approaches may also improve research on interactions between density and processes of interest such as disease transmission across multiple populations. We assess how satellite imagery, unmanned aerial systems (UAS) imagery, and Global Positioning System (GPS) collar data vary in characterizing elk density, distribution and count patterns across times with and without supplemental feeding at the National Elk Refuge (NER), Wyoming, USA. We also present the first comparison of satellite imagery data with traditional [...]
