Our Eye in the Sky
by Lucía Caldas
How cool would it be to gather reliable data on a great number of species while tackling some of the bigger issues that researchers face when carrying out their surveys?
Problems like the cost of labour, logistics and equipment, access to remote areas and the disturbance of wildlife could all be a thing of the past with the use of drones for wildlife research!1
Drones are proving to be highly effective in avoiding these issues, and can help research a variety of topics such as tracking tagged individuals, identifying elusive marine mammals and evaluating their health, determining sex ratios in mating areas, investigating population densities, or offering guidance for agricultural and forestry practices.
Let’s fly over some examples of what drones can do!
Lost & Found
Imagine investing valuable time and resources in tagging individuals to never see or hear from them again. Frustrating, right? Fortunately, with advancements in modern technology this no longer needs to be the case.
Radio-tracking systems incorporated in drones2 are being used in research with many endangered species around the world, such as pangolins in Vietnam to kākāpōs3 in New Zealand.
All you need is to tag your animal with a radio-tag, attach the radio-tracking system to your drone and fly! The radio-receiver will scan the area for nearby tagged individuals and send the info straight to the base station computer. This system detects up to 40 individuals simultaneously, and lets you download the data to view your animals on a live map! You will gain safe access to rugged and remote areas while minimising animal and habitat disturbance, all while sipping a nice cup of coffee!
Cool, huh? But there’s more!
A needle in a haystack
How about playing a game of hide and seek with the largest organism ever to have lived? Should be easy right? Well… Despite their size (up to 30m long and 200 tonnes in weight), sightings of blue whales are not all that common. However, with drones at our disposal, our ability to track, monitor and learn about these elusive marine giants is rapidly improving. Check out this amazing video4 and see for yourself!
Now we can monitor cetacean populations over vast areas of ocean with relative ease. Drones can be used to study hunting behaviours5, accurately estimate whales’ weight6 and even assess their health7 with a drone breathalyser!8
Many other interesting marine studies, such as distinguishing adult male and female Loggerhead sea turtles9 in marine breeding areas or investigating shark and ray densities10 in shallow coral lagoons have delivered great results!
But guess what… there’s still more! Not only are drones helping us to explore unchartered territory by air, but at the depths too! Remotely Operated Vehicles11 (ROVs) a.k.a. “underwater drones” are enabling scientists to explore alien worlds right here on our very own planet and if that wasn’t enough, they are ALSO discovering new organisms all the time. Have a look at this video from Newcastle University12 who recently discovered the deepest dwelling fish ever recorded at 7,500 meters deep in the Pacific Ocean!
Across the Spectrum
Terrestrial scientists can also gain a lot from this technology! Have you ever heard of hyperspectral imaging?13 It is a technique that analyses pixels from images taken by drones. The light reflected from different materials can be used to identify objects or detect processes, which can be applied to a variety of studies that assess forest health, deforestation rates and other land cover changes.
A growing number of researchers are finding the utility of this technology for their investigations in agriculture and natural water systems14, forestry research and practices15 or exploration mapping and mining monitoring.16
Just imagine how the management of vast remote habitats and protected areas can benefit from these applications! All in all, our eye in the sky can not only help us find what was once lost or the needle in the haystack, it can also see across the spectrum in ways we are just beginning to understand. It is beyond George Orwell’s Big Brother’s wildest dreams!
As you can see, the possibilities seem endless with this technology, isn’t it exciting to think about what we will be able to do as it develops further?
References
1 Ivosevic, Bojana & Han, Yong-Gu & Cho, Youngho & Kwon, Ohseok. (2015). The use of conservation drones in ecology and wildlife research. Journal of Ecology and Environment. 38. 113-118. 10.5141/ecoenv.2015.012
4 Drone footage of blue whales
5 Torres LG, Barlow DR, Chandler TE, Burnett JD. 2020. Insight into the kinematics of blue whale surface foraging through drone observations and prey data. PeerJ 8:e8906
7 Pirotta V, Smith A, Ostrowski M, Russell D, Jonsen ID, Grech A and Harcourt R (2017) An Economical Custom-Built Drone for Assessing Whale Health. Front. Mar. Sci. 4:425
8 Apprill A, Miller CA, Moore MJ, Durban JW, Fearnbach H, Barrett-Lennard LG. 2017. Extensive core microbiome in drone-captured whale blow supports a framework for health monitoring. mSystems 2:e00119-17
9 Schofield G, Katselidis KA, Lilley MKS, Reina RD, Hays GC. Detecting elusive aspects of wildlife ecology using drones: New insights on the mating dynamics and operational sex ratios of sea turtles. Funct Ecol. 2017;31:2310–2319
10 Kiszka, Jeremy & Mourier, Johann & Gastrich, Kirk & Heithaus, Michael. (2016). Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to investigate shark and ray densities in a shallow coral lagoon. Marine Ecology Progress Series. 560. 237-242. 10.3354/meps11945
11 ROVs
12 Newcastle University discover new species from the extreme depths of the Pacific
14 Saari, H., Akujärvi, A., Holmlund, C., Ojanen, H., Kaivosoja, J., Nissinen, A., & Niemeläinen, O. (2017). Visible, very near IR and short wave IR hyperspectral drone imaging system for agriculture and natural water applications. In E. Honkavaara, B. Hu, K. Karantzalos, X. Liang, R. Müller, E. Nocerino, I. Pölönen, & P. Rönnholm (Eds.), Frontiers in Spectral imaging and 3D Technologies for Geospatial Solutions (pp. 165-170). International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing ISPRS. International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol.. XLII-3W3
15 Tang, L., Shao, G. Drone remote sensing for forestry research and practices. J. For. Res. 26, 791–797 (2015)
16 Kirsch, M.; Lorenz, S.; Zimmermann, R.; Tusa, L.; Möckel, R.; Hödl, P.; Booysen, R.; Khodadadzadeh, M.; Gloaguen, R. Integration of Terrestrial and Drone-Borne Hyperspectral and Photogrammetric Sensing Methods for Exploration Mapping and Mining Monitoring. Remote Sens. 2018, 10, 1366
