AI satellite survey returns fewer than 600,000, and is contested

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Duporge and colleagues applied UNet and YOLO models to 33–60 cm satellite imagery from 2022 and 2023, counting roughly 300,000 and 500,000 animals respectively and concluding fewer than 600,000 migrate annually. The authors framed the result as complementary to aerial work and noted that differences in timing, coverage and method could explain much of the gap; Grant Hopcraft called it 'completely unconvincing as an estimate of abundance' and Joseph Ogutu warned it could undermine confidence in fifty years of survey data. A correction to the paper was published in December 2025.

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