Hi @wkcmark ,
Great question! There are several advantages for using drones to track wildlife:
1) You can search vast areas more rapidly. Rather than spending hours on foot having to navigate difficult terrain, you can simply fly a drone over the area and quickly find out whether or not the animals you're tracking are in that area.
2) The drone creates an immediate highpoint. Conventional radio-tracking using handheld equipment is often conducted by users on the ground. This can limit the "line of sight" you can get in order to detect a tag - especially if the animal is over a hill etc. Because of this, conventional radio-tracking often requires users to climb to higher ground or radio-track from manned aircraft (e.g. helicopters) to create that high point. However, with a drone, you can create an immediate high point that maximises the line of sight you can get with the tags regardless of the landscape.
3) Track multiple animals at the same time. Conventional radio-tracking can only detect one signal at a time. But with our system, you can track multiple animals simultaneously - maximising your capacity to collect larger quantities of quality data.
4) Drones have the capacity to collect multiple types of data at once. Depending on the drone, you can attach different sensors/cameras (e.g. radio-tracking, thermal, visual etc.) to capture a variety of things all in one flight. Our radio-tracking system even has the capacity to remotely download GPS data from GPS tags from the air.
These are just some benefits of using drones for tracking. Let me know if you have any further questions!
Cheers
Laura
