Wildlife research and management methods in the 21st century: Where do unmanned aircraft fit in?

Abstract

Since the turn of the century, emerging unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) have found increasingly diverse applications in wildlife science as convenient, very highresolution remote sensing devices. Achieved or conceptualized applications include optical surveying and observation of animals, autonomous wildlife telemetry tracking, and habitat research and monitoring. As the technology continues to progress and interest from the wildlife science community grows, there may yet be much untapped potential for UAS to contribute to the discipline. We present a review of the published primary literature on the application of UAS in wildlife science and related fields. This is followed by a systematic review of the broader wildlife science literature published since the turn of the century to assess where UAS are likely to make important contributions going forward based on the trends that have emerged thus far. UAS, in particular small lightweight models, are generally well suited for collecting data at an intermediate spatial scale between what is easily coverable on the ground and what is economically coverable with conventional aircraft. They are particularly useful for monitoring wildlife and habitats in places that are difficult to access or navigate from the ground, as well as approaching sensitive or aggressive species.Key words: aerial survey, conservation, remotely piloted aircraft system, unmanned aerial vehicle, drone, wildlife monitoring.Résumé : Depuis le début du siècle, les nouveaux systèmes d'aéronefs sans pilote (UAS), en tant qu'appareils de télédétection de haute résolution pratiques, ont donné lieu à de plus en plus d'applications diverses en science de la faune. Les applications réalisées ou conceptualisées comprennent l'inventaire et l'observation optiques des animaux, la localisation autonome de la faune par télémétrie et la recherche et la surveillance des habitats. À mesure que la technologie continue de progresser et que l'intérêt de la part du milieu scientifique du domaine de la faune croît, la contribution des UAS à la discipline pourra augmenter, car il peut y avoir encore beaucoup de potentiel à exploiter. Nous présentons un examen de la littérature primaire publiée portant sur l'application des UAS dans les domaines de la science de la faune et connexes. Un examen systématique de l'ensemble de la littérature de la science de la faune publiée depuis le début du siècle s'ensuit dans le but d'évaluer, d'après les tendances qui ont émergé jusqu'à maintenant, où les UAS vont possiblement faire des contributions à l'avenir. Les UAS, en particulier les petits modèles légers, sont bien adaptés à la collecte de données à une échelle spatiale intermédiaire entre ce qui est facilement saisi sur le terrain et ce qui est saisi à l'aide d'un aéronef traditionnel. Ils sont particulièrement utiles pour la surveillance de la faune et des habitats dans les endroits difficiles à accéder ou à naviguer à partir du sol, ainsi que pour s'approcher des espèces sensibles ou agressives.

An approach for using off-the-shelf object-based image analysis software to detect and count birds in large volumes of aerial imagery

“…Several studies have indicated that aerial image counts can be more accurate and consistent than live-observer counts (Boyd 2000, Frederick et al 2003, Buckland et al 2012, but a major drawback of the former is the significant time and effort required to manually analyze large volumes of imagery (Woodworth et al 1997, Béchet et al 2004. With burgeoning use of small low-flying unmanned aircraft, or drones, as a means of collecting very high-resolution aerial imagery of birds (Chabot and Bird 2015), as well as increasing possibilities to census birds in satellite imagery (LaRue et al 2017), the challenge of analyzing large volumes of imagery to detect and count subjects has been receiving increased attention.…”

Testing unmanned aircraft systems for salmon spawning surveys

“…Furthermore, such operation is heavily restricted in most developed countries (Chabot and Bird 2015). Increasing the number of crews operating UASs within line of sight to achieve a complete census would eliminate problems with bias and coverage.…”

“…Animals that have been monitored with UASs include surface-oriented marine, terrestrial, and tree-dwelling mammals, as well as waterbirds and aquatic reptiles (Chabot and Bird 2015). Compared to wildlife, the peer-reviewed literature on the use of UASs to count fish is scant, and the counts were made within relatively small study areas.…”

“…Whitehead et al (2014) described the use of a UAS to count individual Sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) within two major spawning sites located along a ≈2000 m stretch of river in British Columbia. It is well known that counting animals in larger study areas can be hampered by current limitations (e.g., battery life) and regulations that restrict the operational range of UASs to "within line of sight" (e.g., Chabot and Bird 2015;Linchant et al 2015). In large terrestrial and aquatic systems, survey sampling methods can be adopted in lieu of complete census counts to overcome such limitations.…”

A Low-Cost Technique for Radio-Tracking Wildlife Using a Small Standard Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

“…Recent advances in using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to study wildlife (see review by Chabot and Bird (2015)) offer promise and may improve data collection efficiency, especially in forested environments (Koh and Wich 2012). Small UAVs, such as multirotor platforms, are suitable for this task because they are easy to deploy, can fly over terrain that is difficult to access on foot, and can be programmed to follow specific trajectories.…”