Characterisation of visitation of the remote Conception Island National Park using daily satellite imagery

Abstract

Conception Island is a remote island bank in the central Bahamas, the entirety of which is encompassed within the Conception Island National Park. Conception Island is of vital importance to numerous threatened and critically endangered wildlife species, but tracking visitation is considered challenging as there is no warden and not all vessels follow registration rules. To augment understanding of park visitation, we obtained daily satellite imagery from Dove CubeSat® satellites managed by the company Planet® to characterise diurnal marine vessel traffic around Conception Island between 2016 and 2021. We obtained a total of 888 observable days, which yielded 1,197 vessel detections. Using these remote observations, we were able to geolocate vessels that visited Conception Island National Park over this period, as well as estimate the length overall of each vessel to within 10 m. We found that peak visitation to the National Park occurs in the spring, a time that corresponds to when migrating songbirds arrive at the island, when the critically endangered Silver Boa is mating, when White-tailed Tropicbirds are using the island for mating, and when Green Turtles are starting to lay eggs. This study provides the first analysis of marine vessel visitation to Conception Island National Park and we believe that these data show that the park is visited far more frequently than was appreciated.