Use of an unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) to survey Nile crocodile populations: A case study at Lake Nyamithi, Ndumo game reserve, South Africa

Ezat, Mohamed A.; Fritsch, Camille J.; Downs, Colleen T.

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2018.04.032

Cited by 74 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…They provide advantages over in-situ observations, accessing physically inaccessible or dangerous areas in a relatively small amount of time [17][18][19]. Drones are also relatively cheap, safe and less disturbing, improving traditional wildlife surveys [3,18,20,21]. They can, however, disturb some animal populations, requiring careful consideration of appropriateness when surveying [22].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Counting Mixed Breeding Aggregations of Animal Species Using Drones: Lessons from Waterbirds on Semi-Automation

et al. 2020

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Using drones to count wildlife saves time and resources and allows access to difficult or dangerous areas. We collected drone imagery of breeding waterbirds at colonies in the Okavango Delta (Botswana) and Lowbidgee floodplain (Australia). We developed a semi-automated counting method, using machine learning, and compared effectiveness of freeware and payware in identifying and counting waterbird species (targets) in the Okavango Delta. We tested transferability to the Australian breeding colony. Our detection accuracy (targets), between the training and test data, was 91% for the Okavango Delta colony and 98% for the Lowbidgee floodplain colony. These estimates were within 1-5%, whether using freeware or payware for the different colonies. Our semi-automated method was 26% quicker, including development, and 500% quicker without development, than manual counting. Drone data of waterbird colonies can be collected quickly, allowing later counting with minimal disturbance. Our semi-automated methods efficiently provided accurate estimates of nesting species of waterbirds, even with complex backgrounds. This could be used to track breeding waterbird populations around the world, indicators of river and wetland health, with general applicability for monitoring other taxa.Remote Sens. 2020, 12, 1185 2 of 17 semi-automated methods. The former can be extremely labour-intensive and consequently expensive, particularly for large aggregations of wildlife [26], further complicated when more than one species is counted. Semi-automated methods, including the counting of animals from photographs (e.g., camera traps) and drone imagery, are increasingly being developed around the world [27]. These methods reduce the time required to count and process drone images [28], accelerating the data entry stage and encouraging the use of drones as scientific tools for management. Such benefits allow for real-time monitoring and management decisions and could, for example, assist in the targeted delivery of environmental flows for waterbird breeding events [29].Generally, semi-automated counting methods are most effective for species where there are strong contrasts against the backgrounds, particularly when background colours and shapes are consistent [28]. They can distinguish large single species aggregations on relatively simple backgrounds [30][31][32], up to sixteen avian species (numbering in the hundreds) on simple single colour backgrounds, such as oceans [33,34], or single species aggregations of hundreds of thousands on complex backgrounds [3].Development of flexible, repeatable and efficient methods, using open source software, is important in ensuring methods are applicable across a range of datasets [35,36]. Further, there are potential cost implications of processing data, given that some processing software can be expensive (i.e., compulsory licence fees, called 'payware' in this paper) and so are often only accessible to large organisations in high-income countries [37]. Open source software, or software with optional lic...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Counting Mixed Breeding Aggregations of Animal Species Using Drones: Lessons from Waterbirds on Semi-Automation

et al. 2020

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“…UAVs are increasingly used for long-term monitoring efforts such as wildlife surveys [16,17], coastal erosion surveys [18,19], and beach litter monitoring [20]. Although some research has been done using UAVs for monitoring purposes in the dynamic riverine environment [21][22][23], to date, no efforts have been made to broaden the application of UAVs for the monitoring of particle fluxes. We foresee many opportunities in usage of UAVs for plastic debris monitoring, both in data acquisition and in data processing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Riverine Plastic Litter Monitoring Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

et al. 2019

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Plastic debris has become an abundant pollutant in marine, coastal and riverine environments, posing a large threat to aquatic life. Effective measures to mitigate and prevent marine plastic pollution require a thorough understanding of its origin and eventual fate. Several models have estimated that land-based sources are the main source of marine plastic pollution, although field data to substantiate these estimates remain limited. Current methodologies to measure riverine plastic transport require the availability of infrastructure and accessible riverbanks, but, to obtain measurements on a higher spatial and temporal scale, new monitoring methods are required. This paper presents a new methodology for quantifying riverine plastic debris using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), including a first application on Klang River, Malaysia. Additional plastic measurements were done in parallel with the UAV-based approach to make comparisons between the two methods. The spatiotemporal distribution of the plastics obtained with both methods show similar patterns and variations. With this, we show that UAV-based monitoring methods are a promising alternative for currently available approaches for monitoring riverine plastic transport, especially in remote and inaccessible areas.

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“…However, the study did not test for possible low flight heights at which the medium and large mammals could be detected and counted in the UAV images. In South Africa, the UAVs were used to predict densities of different wildlife species and modeling cattle in Kwa Zulu-Natal Province [37]. It attempted to fill the gap of UAV's applications in assessing the impacts of infrastructure on wildlife species, particularly in the collision hazards of the drone for birds.…”

Section: Uav-based Assessment Of Animals and Their Habitatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A study in the Democratic Republic of Congo used an RGB sensor to estimate the population status of the common hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibious L.) [30]. The population status (number and structure) of the Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) was also studied using UAV in South Africa [37].…”

Section: Uav-based Assessment Of Animals and Their Habitatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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Use of an unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) to survey Nile crocodile populations: A case study at Lake Nyamithi, Ndumo game reserve, South Africa

Cited by 74 publications

References 18 publications

Counting Mixed Breeding Aggregations of Animal Species Using Drones: Lessons from Waterbirds on Semi-Automation

Counting Mixed Breeding Aggregations of Animal Species Using Drones: Lessons from Waterbirds on Semi-Automation

Riverine Plastic Litter Monitoring Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

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

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