Stories I read about domestic drones suggest they are like pesky mosquitos, buzzing around back yards and along crowded beaches. Once man was sued for shooting down a drone that hovered over his sun-bathing daughter. So the question is: can drones do something useful?
I read today about drones that track radio-collared wildlife. An Australian project:
Wildlife tracking is time-consuming. Even when tagged, finding animals that are part of a study is tricky, especially when they can fly, head underground or travel within a large range of land.
Scientists can spend days tracking wildlife to plot their locations and movements. Researchers from Australian National University wanted to speed things up so that scientist could be learning more while searching less. They developed the world’s first radio-tracking drone that can locate tagged animals in a fraction of the time it takes to do so on the ground.
“Early indications are that the drones could save a huge amount of time. If you have two operators working and they can put the drone up in two bursts of 20 minutes, they can do what would take half a day or more to do using ground methods,” said ANU Associate Professor Adrian Manning.
And a cheery tale about Chimps:
For the last few years, drones have taken to the front lines of conservation efforts around the world. They’re being used to monitor animal species and keep an eye out for poachers, venturing into areas that are either dangerous for humans or just plain hard to get to.
The small aerial vehicles are now being used to aid in the protection of another species — the chimpanzee. In Africa, the primates make nests high in thick tree canopies. These nests are difficult for researchers to locate, often taking hours on the ground to find just one nest.
“The most commonly used method to survey great ape populations is counting nests during ground surveys as they build a new nest each night but these ground surveys do not occur frequently enough with due time and costs involved, said Liverpool John Moores University professor Serge Wich, who was a co-author of the study.
“So far, aerial drone surveys have successfully detected nests of orang-utans, but before this study it was unknown if this technology would work for African apes, which often construct their nest lower below the canopy. This study shows that drones are also a promising tool to assist African ape conservation.”
More good news for rhinos and elephants:
Air Shepherd is matching unmanned aerial vehicles with super computers to help rangers stop the slaughter – during tests in one area where 19 rhinos are typically killed monthly, there were zero deaths for 6 months.
Here are some desperately depressing numbers to consider: 40,000 elephants and over1,200 rhinos were killed by poachers in 2014 – a rate that will lead both animals to extinction within 10 years if things don’t change. In the last half-dozen years there has been an exponential increase in the killing of these humble, majestic creatures. It’s getting worse and rangers are losing the war against poachers.
But a new approach using drones and big data may be able to put an end to the senseless slaughter.
The brains behind the brainstorm is the nonprofit organization, Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation and their program, Air Shepherd. Tests run by Nelson Mandela’s Peace Parks Foundation and UAV & Drone Solutions were so impressive and literally stopped poaching during trial runs. The Lindbergh Foundation then introduced the University of Maryland’s data analytic software which will be used to make the program even more effective.
Since poachers kill at night – and over vast expanses of land – it’s proven difficult for rangers to find them before it’s too late. The Air Shepherd team’s unmanned aerial vehicles are equipped with infrared cameras and GPS with which they track and transmit thermal images of animals and poachers – silently collecting information that allows operators to quickly vector rangers to the location before an animal is killed.
Drones are a great example of human ability to use technology to either gratify and annoy (flying over high school girls) or protect and enhance (conservation). I do not want to get too preachy, so will end by saying our culture would be much more sane and kind by avoiding things that simply gratify and annoy. Where else can we protect and enhance using technology?
