Aerial Photographic Survey Services

The Vendor is required to provide requires digital aerial photography surveys of the area subpopulation of eastern migratory caribou in June and July 2026.
- Baseline information is required for eastern migratory caribou to help assess the potential impacts of planned and future development projects. 
- The results from this survey will be used to estimate calving ground locations and obtain minimum animal counts of eastern migratory caribou, as well as to inform eastern migratory caribou conservation efforts.
- Surveys will occur between June 15 and July 20 when eastern migratory caribou are highly aggregated on the landscape, to enable accurate estimation of population numbers and aggregation sites.
- Collect GPS waypoints and incidental photographs of caribou and other species observed during surveys; and
- Conduct systematic aerial photographic surveys across the eastern migratory caribou range in northern state;
- Provide, according to agency specifications, survey log details and digital media relating to the aerial photographic surveys (digital waypoints and tracklogs), and digital photos.
- Must secure and support a fixed-wing aircraft crew to carry out the aerial surveys; and
- Must arrange for provision of appropriate aircraft (fixed-wing aircraft), qualified pilots, storage of fuel, aircraft safety equipment, and aircraft equipment necessary to the surveys (not already provided by the aircraft owners).
- Must arrange for use of aircraft landing strips and/or landing pads and other travel logistics.
- Must arrange for necessary accommodation of crew members during the surveys.
- Provide all equipment and supplies necessary to complete the work, including but not limited to the following.
•    Photographic equipment
•    GPS instruments
•    communication devices
•    recording devices
•    maps
•    survival gear
•    aircraft safety gear
- Aircraft must arrive on site with a minimum of 40 hours flying ability before next maintenance inspection is required.
- Aircraft must be equipped with photographic equipment mounted to the aircraft. Photographic equipment must have an image resolution large enough to identify individual animals from photographs. Photographic equipment must produce geo-referenced digital photos to calculate exact survey strip width and survey area of photo transects.
- Photographs taken during survey must be of a file format and/or have associated data to allow subsequent images to be stitched together to create composite continuous aerial photo strips necessary for counting individual animals in photographs
- Aircraft must be equipped with and specialized in taking aerial photos.
- Aerial photos must be taken at Ground Sample Distance (GSD 6, 7 or 8 cm) with a minimum resolution of 150 Megapixels (MP) and spatial information attached (GPSIMU).
- Photos must have a 60% overlap between consecutive photos for stereo enhancement during the photo interpretation.
- A flight schedule must be prepared to select daily maximum flight distances that will reduce the likelihood of observer fatigue.
- All observations of caribou must be logged on a handheld GPS unit and photographed. When caribou are seen, indicate the number of animals and the estimated distance of each group of animals in an electronic data form.