Dr. Farouk El-Baz, director of the Boston University (BU) Remote Sensing Lab, answered with a resounding "Yes!" He knew he could "count" on remote sensing. Counting objects on aerial photographs has long been an application of remotely-sensed imagery. For example, foresters routinely count trees, geologists count sand dunes, agronomists count hay bales and cows, planners count houses and cars, and biologists count birds. Very often a grid is placed over the images and objects are either directly counted or estimated for each grid square.

Migrating snow geese, shown as white dots, gather at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico, during their annual migration. US Fish and Wildlife Service biologists used their color infrared air photo to count the geese. Such counts are part of the USFWS habitat monitoring program. The full 9x9 inch photo showed 45,000 geese!