Precision wildlife monitoring using unmanned aerial vehicles

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) represent a new frontier in environmental research. Their use has the potential to revolutionise the field if they prove capable of improving data quality or the ease with which data are collected beyond traditional methods. We apply UAV technology to wildlife monitoring in tropical and polar environments and demonstrate that UAV-derived counts of colony nesting birds are an order of magnitude more precise than traditional ground counts. The increased count precision afforded by UAVs, along with their ability to survey hard-to-reach populations and places, will likely drive many wildlife monitoring projects that rely on population counts to transition from traditional methods to UAV technology. Careful consideration will be required to ensure the coherence of historic data sets with new UAV-derived data and we propose a method for determining the number of duplicated (concurrent UAV and ground counts) sampling points needed to achieve data compatibility.

Study of fauna population changes on Penguin Island and Turret Point Oasis (King George Island, Antarctica) using an unmanned aerial vehicle

“…On images obtained on 1 December 2016, the number of occupied nests (equal to the number of breeding pairs) in the study areas was estimated on the basis of photographic interpretation using ArcGIS 10.5 (Environmental Systems Research Institute 2016) software. A standardized process for photo interpretation was used to ensure that the counting process has a low probability of missing nests (systematic grid searching) (e.g., Hodgson et al 2016). The date of UAV census was determined using the breeding chronology of chinstrap and Adélie species on the basis of direct filed observations in easily accessible penguin colonies situated in the vicinity of the Arctowski Station (Point Thomas) (Fig.…”

Remotely piloted aircraft improve precision of capture–mark–resight population estimates of Australian fur seals

“…The equality of variances was therefore assessed for each of the four techniques using Levene's tests and coefficients of variation for individual sites (Hodgson et al 2016). Pup estimates were made for both colonies, using the four applied counting techniques (direct ground counts, ground derived CMR estimates, RPA-derived image counts, and RPAderived CMR estimates).…”

“…While the two are frequently used interchangeably, each has a distinct intent (Sutherland et al 2004, Hodgson et al 2016). While the two are frequently used interchangeably, each has a distinct intent (Sutherland et al 2004, Hodgson et al 2016).…”

Possibility of applying unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and mapping software for the monitoring of waterbirds and their habitats

“…In particular, monitoring studies targeting birds that are physically difficult to access or susceptible to human interference have been constantly made using drones (Hodgson et al 2016;Sarda-Palomera et al 2012). …”