Fright or Flight? Behavioural Responses of Kangaroos to Drone-Based Monitoring

Brunton, Elizabeth; Bolin, Jessica A.; Leon, Javier X.; Burnett, Scott

doi:10.3390/drones3020041

Cited by 33 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…To address the critical knowledge gaps pertaining to suitable separation distances between drones and birds, this study conducted standardized approaches using a drone moving towards birds and measured their responses in a spatially explicit manner. The study examines these responses in relation to possible (‘candidate’) prescriptions which may feature in CoPs, namely: approaches by drones at 4 m versus 10 m above the ground, altitudes at which recreational drones are commonly flown (‘altitude prescription’; see Brunton, Bolin, Leon, & Burnett, ); and; minimum separation distances between drones and wildlife at take‐off (‘minimum take‐off separation distance prescription’; see Vas et al, ). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Escape responses of terrestrial and aquatic birds to drones: Towards a code of practice to minimize disturbance

Weston

O’Brien

Kostoglou

et al. 2020

Journal of Applied Ecology

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Advances in human technology can lead to widespread and rapid increases in interactions between wildlife and potentially disturbing stimuli. The recreational use of drones is widespread and increasing, yet laws and codes of practice which aim to manage deleterious impacts (e.g. negative interactions with wildlife) are reactionary, unscientific and inadequate. One prominent potential negative effect of drones interacting with birds is disturbance; the disruption of normal states caused by responses such as escape. We measure avian escape responses to an approaching drone (n = 561 across 22 species) to inform the development of a code of practice to manage drone‐induced disturbance. Approaches were made at a relatively high and low altitude (10 and 4 m), and at different take‐off distances, both of which are candidate prescriptions for a code of practice. Flight‐initiation distance varied between species, but not between the altitudes tested. The probability of eliciting an escape response was high, and 14.6% higher at the lower altitude (at which 88.4% of overflies resulted in an escape response). Our response rates (from terrestrial and aquatic species) are higher than those reported for different birds in other places, most of which were water or seabirds. The probability of a drone take‐off in itself eliciting a response was low (<20%) when the drone take‐off was >40 m away, and decreased further with increasing distance from birds, with no escapes occurring >120 m. Policy implications. For our sample, no drone take‐off closer than 100 m, and no flight within 100 m would eliminate the vast majority of escape responses by birds. Required separation distances between drones and wildlife may exceed those required for other human activities, such as for walkers.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Escape responses of terrestrial and aquatic birds to drones: Towards a code of practice to minimize disturbance

Weston

O’Brien

Kostoglou

et al. 2020

Journal of Applied Ecology

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“…Despite the provision of real-time images at high resolutions by the UAV-based remote sensing aerial platform compared with the traditional remote sensing tools, ecologists and protected area managers need more information for the effective and efficient monitoring of medium-to-large mammals and their habitats at spatiotemporal scales. A clear understanding of the detection of different mammals and ecological attributes of their habitat conditions from the UAV images with different qualities captured at different flight heights and spatiotemporal scales is essential [2,16]. The nature and size of an area of interest may necessitate the use of UAVs in favor of traditional techniques [17].…”

Section: Conventional Techniques For Ecological Monitoring Of Wildlifmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In another study, a small UAV mounted with an infrared and still cameras were used to test its ability in detecting and recognizing dugong and whales in Western Australia [7]. Other mammals studied in Australia using the UAV include the eastern grey kangaroo (Macropus giganteus) using video and infrared (IR) camera [2]; sharks, dolphins, and rays using ND4 circular polarizing filters; and Humpback whales using D90 12 megapixel digital SLR and standard definition electro-optical camera [7].…”

Section: Uav-based Assessment Of Animals and Their Habitatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Real-time ecological data is critical for effective and efficient monitoring of wildlife populations and habitats to deal with the threats that face wildlife [1][2][3][4][5]. Recently, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones or rapidly piloted aircrafts (RPAs), have emerged as an alternative aerial survey platform for fauna and their habitats, and they advance the generation of real-time data [5,6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Integrating UAV Technology in an Ecological Monitoring System for Community Wildlife Management Areas in Tanzania

Mangewa

Ndakidemi

2019

Sustainability

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Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have recently emerged as a new remote sensing aerial platform, and they are seemingly advancing real-time data generation. Nonetheless, considerable uncertainties remain in the extent to which wildlife managers can integrate UAVs into ecological monitoring systems for wildlife and their habitats. In this review, we discuss the recent progress and gaps in UAV use in wildlife conservation and management. The review notes that there is scanty information on UAV use in ecological monitoring of medium-to-large mammals found in groups in heterogeneous habitats. We also explore the need and extent to which the technology can be integrated into ecological monitoring systems for mammals in heterogeneous habitats and in topographically-challenging community wildlife-management areas, as a complementary platform to the traditional techniques. Based on its ability to provide high-resolution images in real-time, further experiments on its wider use in the ecological monitoring of wildlife on a spatiotemporal scale are important. The experimentation outputs will make the UAV a very reliable remote sensing platform that addresses the challenges facing conventional techniques.

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“…In this study, they propose a multi-tier drone network and study optimal proportion and altitudes of large and small drones. Brunton et al's 19 study deals with the cost minimization problem related to the optimal placement of drones in order to cover a set of static or mobile targets. This study focuses on the importance of flight altitude in drone-based kangaroo monitoring and examines the importance of high altitude rather than optimal flight altitude in drone applications.…”

Section: Studies Related To Search Altitudementioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of factors affecting the speed of probabilistic target search using unmanned aerial vehicles

Cho

2019

International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks

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When searching for targets using unmanned aerial vehicles, speed is important for many applications such as the discovery of patients in a medical emergency. The speed of operation of actual unmanned aerial vehicles is strongly related to the performance of the camera sensor used for target recognition, search altitude, and the search algorithm employed by the unmanned aerial vehicle. In this study, the major factors affecting the speed of a probabilistic unmanned aerial vehicle target search are analyzed. In particular, simulations are performed to analyze the influence of the search altitude, sensor false alarm rate, and sensor missed detection rate on the required travel distance and the time required for a search. Furthermore, the search performance of an unmanned aerial vehicle is analyzed by varying the search altitude with fixed false alarm and missed detection probabilities. The simulation results show that the search performance is significantly affected by changes in the false alarm and missed detection probabilities of the sensor, and it confirms that the effect of the missed detection probability is greater than that of the false alarm probability. The second simulation proves that the altitude of an unmanned aerial vehicle is a very important factor for the speed of a target search. In particular, the result shows that, for a real data set, the search distance and time at 10 and 5 m are about 2.8 times and 14.3 times larger, respectively, than those at 20 m.

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Fright or Flight? Behavioural Responses of Kangaroos to Drone-Based Monitoring

Cited by 33 publications

References 40 publications

Escape responses of terrestrial and aquatic birds to drones: Towards a code of practice to minimize disturbance

Escape responses of terrestrial and aquatic birds to drones: Towards a code of practice to minimize disturbance

Integrating UAV Technology in an Ecological Monitoring System for Community Wildlife Management Areas in Tanzania

Analysis of factors affecting the speed of probabilistic target search using unmanned aerial vehicles

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