This paper proposes a distributed energy efficient clustering protocol for target surveillance in sensor networks (EECTS). The protocol selects cluster heads according to a hybrid of node's residual energy and distribution of its neighbors. In addition, for the sake of reducing the energy dissipation of the cluster head, a minimum spanning tree with root of the base station is constructed among the cluster heads. Then it sends the gathered data to its upstream node along the spanning tree. The chief task of surveillance sensor networks is to sensing the moving target. So an intra-cluster node schedule method named EECTS-1 that can senses the most part of the network and it's enhanced method EECTS-2 are introduced. The two methods can obtain the high continuous surveillance degree when the moving target enters into the network. EECTS produces a linear network lifetime in the number of nodes and keeps good continuous surveillance degree simultaneously. The simulation results show that with the same performance of surveillance the EECTS-1 achieves the same lifetime as that HEED obtains and outperforms DEEG with up to 35% improvement. The EECTS-2 outperforms HEED significantly with prolonging the network lifetime about 70%~80%. Therefore the EECTS is suitable for military target surveillance and has high reliability of the sensing information.