Testing Unmanned Aerial Systems for Monitoring Wildlife at Night

• Published in: Wildlife Society bulletin (2011) Vol. 43; no. 1; pp. 182 - 190
• Main Authors: IRELAND, ALEX W., PALANDRO, DAVID A., GARAS, VICTOR Y., WOODS, RICHARD W., DAVI, RICHARD A., BUTLER, JOSH D., GIBBENS, DYAN M., GIBBENS, JEFFREY S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 01-03-2019
• Subjects: Tools And Technology
• ISSN: 2328-5540

Monitoring wildlife populations in proximity to industrial activities, including oil and gas operations, is critical to mitigating potential risk to both animals and workers, especially at night. Wereport on tests of mobile and power-tethered unmanned aerial systems (UASs) equipped with thermal cameras, comparing between these systems as well as to more conventional ground-based camera traps. Our overall objective was to develop suggestions for potential utility of UASs by industry to monitor wildlife populations. We focused on straightforward counts of animals, qualitative comparisons of system operations and detection capabilities, and a simple spatial interpolation of observed animals to illustrate how these data could potentially be used in operational decision-making. Results suggested that wide fields-of-view and extended operational periods offered by power-tethered UASs could be advantageous for spatially extensive and temporally continuous monitoring needs, but that mobile UASs more easily generated mapped data products for integration into existing Geographic Information Systems. In either case, system redundancy would be critical to ensuring effective deployment in real-world monitoring for risk mitigation.