Drones for Wildlife Conservation

In the age of technology and in a time where wildlife conservation is more important than ever, it is necessary to blend the two in order to protect the environment. There are continuously new innovations in technology every year and many of these products are applicable for wildlife research and conservation. One of which has become very popular among the public and has gained the interest researchers and wildlife managers. Drones!

Drones or otherwise known as unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are increasingly being employed to conduct aerial reconnaissance of wildlife around the world, including monitoring the breeding population size of Black-headed Gulls Chroicocephalus ridibundus (Sarda-Palomera et al. 2012), riparian habitat mapping and use by proboscis monkeys Nasalis larvatus (Stark et al. 2017), estimating body condition of pinnipeds (Krause et al. 2017), surveying for elephants Loxodonto africana (Vermeulen et al. 2013), and surveying for whales (Koski et al. 2009).  This new data collection technique offers potential to collect more accurate and precise ecological data than using previous survey methods (Hodgson et al. 2017). When used properly this method of data collection and monitoring is non-invasive.

However, wildlife can take things into their own hands, talons or paws when they get a hold of your drone and damage your expensive tool. See in the link below video for animals vs. drones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fr87wPvNIs&t=62s

There are some ethical considerations that pose some problems for using drones for conservation work. If used irresponsibly drones can violate people's privacy, there are data security problems, and there are also psychological issues when people see drones and don't know what they are (ALIENS! or its a Popo Bawa!) or people feel they under surveillance by the military. (Sandbrook, 2015).

"Filming wildlife with drones has quickly got a very bad reputation. Animals running in panic from a drone justifiable annoys animal lovers and park authorities . Yet wildlife can be filmed without disturbance if it’s done with care and patience. Most species quickly habituate to the drone if its done correctly." - Africa Luxury Travel and Adventure

The USDA is currently looking into conducting research with drones. I personally work on rabies research and to combat the disease in wildlife we drop vaccine laden baits from planes, hand bait and use bait stations. There are many areas where we want to drop baits, however they are too urban to drop from planes, however they are difficult to get to on foot, so there is potential to use drones to drop baits into difficult to reach areas.

As technological advancements continue to improve, UAS has the potential become a valuable and safe survey tool across many diverse natural resource applications. Do you agree that drones should be used for conservation or do you think there are too many issues with the use of drones?

References:

Hodgson, A., Kelly, N., & Peel, D. (2013). Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for surveying marine fauna: a dugong case study. PloS one, 8(11), e79556.

Krause, D. J., Hinke, J. T., Perryman, W. L., Goebel, M. E., & LeRoi, D. J. (2017). An accurate and adaptable photogrammetric approach for estimating the mass and body condition of pinnipeds using an unmanned aerial system. PloS one, 12(11), e0187465.

Koski, W. R., Allen, T., Ireland, D., Buck, G., Smith, P. R., Macrander, A. M., ... & McDonald, T. L. (2009). Evaluation of an unmanned airborne system for monitoring marine mammals. Aquatic Mammals, 35(3), 347.

Sandbrook, C. (2015). The social implications of using drones for biodiversity conservation. Ambio, 44(4), 636-647.

Sarda-Palmera, F. et al. (2012). Fine‐scale bird monitoring from light unmanned aircraft systems. Ibis, 154(1), 177-183.

Stark, D. J., Vaughan, I. P., Evans, L. J., Kler, H., & Goossens, B. (2018). Combining drones and satellite tracking as an effective tool for informing policy change in riparian habitats: a proboscis monkey case study. Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation, 4(1), 44-52.

Vermeulen, C., Lejeune, P., Lisein, J., Sawadogo, P., & Bouché, P. (2013). Unmanned aerial survey of elephants. PloS one, 8(2), e54700.

Africa Luxury Travel and Adventure. (2017, December 27) .Best Drone Footage of African Wildlife. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcNMrdLRHjE [Video File]

Lama Volant. (2017, October 18). Animals vs Drones (Drone Crash Compilation). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fr87wPvNIs&t=62s [Video File]