Tens Of Thousands Of Migrating Turtles Captured by Breathtaking Drone Footage (Pics & Video)

Since 1984, scientists have been marking thousands of green turtles with paint – a difficult and time-consuming task – before visually counting individual animals and thus making a sound estimate of their populations on Raine Island. Previous population survey methods involved painting a white stripe down the green turtles' shell when they were nesting on the beach. The paint is non-toxic and washes off in a couple of days, explained Dr Andrew Dunstan from the Queensland Department of Environment and Science in a statement. From a small boat, we then counted painted and non-painted turtles, but eyes are attracted much more to a turtle with a bright white stripe than an unpainted turtle, resulting in biased counts and reduced accuracy.