In recent years, drone technologies have been explored for a range of applications in conservation including (but not limited to) mapping, biodiversity inventories, antipoaching patrols, wildlife tracking, and fire monitoring. The rise of customizable, open-source drones like those of ArduPilot and OpenROV hold promise for more effective conservation applications, and combined with other monitoring sensors and devices, they are capable of collecting high-resolution data quickly, noninvasively, and at relatively low cost.
However, challenges remain in putting these tools to use. A recent paper reviewing 256 conservation drone projects highlighted some of these major obstacles, ranging from unintended social and ecological consequences of drone operations to still prohibitive costs, both in terms of hardware and in terms of storing and processing large volumes of data. The longstanding challenge of power/battery life remains as well.
If you're considering trying out drones for yourself, and want to explore the possibilities and understand the major conversations happening around this technology, check out these beginner's resources and conversations from across the WILDLABS platform:
Three Resources for Beginners:
- Conservation Technology User Guidelines Issue 5: Drones, World Wildlife Fund | Drones, best practices, ethics, regulations, case studies
- WILDLABS Virtual Meetup Recording: Drones, Craig Elder, Dr. Claire Burke, and Gabriel Levin | Drones, thermal camera, wildlife crime, ML, biologging
- New Paper: Drones and Bornean Orangutan Distribution, Sol Milne | Drones, data analysis, citizen science, community science, primates
Three Forum Threads for Beginners:
- Curious about radio-tracking with drones? | Wildlife Drones, Biologging (5 replies)
- Drones for GIS Best practice Document | Adrian Hughes, Drones (10 replies)
- WWF Conservation Technology Series: Drones in Conservation | Aurélie Shapiro, Drones (7 replies)
Three Tutorials for Beginners:
- How do I use a drone to capture radio-tracking data? | Debbie Saunders, Tech Tutors
- How do I choose the right drone for my conservation goals? | Shashank Srinivasan, Tech Tutors
- How do I strategically allocate drones for conservation? | Elizabeth Bondi, Tech Tutors
Want to know more about using drones, and learn from experts in the WILDLABS community? Make sure you join the conversation in our Drones group!
*Header photo: Parker Levinson, Point Blue Conservation Science
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Conservation X Labs & Wild Me
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I am an Ecologist working at the intersection of conservation and technology. Looking forward to better understand the use of GIS, Drones, Camera Traps and Bioacoutics in conservation & restoration.
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As drone usage continues to grow within the conservation tech community, driven by improved performance, increased accessibility, and the wide range of data collection methods that can be served by drones, so do the...
19 October 2020
The miniaturisation of technology is rapidly opening up new possibilities for conservationists and environmental scientists in need of less invasive, easy to deploy solutions. University of Washington researchers have...
13 October 2020
Today, Sustainable Fishing Challenges group leader Daniel Steadman discusses how fishing gear itself could benefit from fresh technological innovations to prevent both environmental damage and damage to species and...
19 August 2020
In this case study from herpetologist Emily Taylor, we learn about the best methods and gear used to track snakes, lizards, and other reptiles and amphibians via radio-telemetry, and how these techniques have changed...
31 July 2020
What is it like to track endangered species using drones? In this blog post from Wildlife Drones, Dr. Debbie Saunders travels to New Zealand to track the Kākāpō, an extemely rare and elusive bird of which approximately...
8 July 2020
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute's MARS ocean observatory may someday make conducting deep-sea research more accessible and affordable thanks to Deep-Sea Connect, their new wireless system engineered to ...
31 March 2020
2020 marked our fifth year holding our annual #Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge, and our community made it a milestone to remember. Conservationists took to Twitter last week to share their best high-tech snapshots from...
4 March 2020
The 2020 Tusk Awards are now accepting nominations of outstanding individuals who have made a significant impact on conservation in Africa. These nominations offer the rare and exciting opportunity to honor your peers...
3 March 2020
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How do we actually know a whale weighs 40 tonnes? After all, we can’t exactly capture an animal the size of a bus and simply put it on a scale. Fredrik Christiansen explains their new, non-invasive way of weighing...
9 October 2019
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In this From the Field interview, we talk to Melissa Schiele, a tech whiz, marine ecologist, and conservationist at the Zoological Society of London. She shares with us about her work helping to develop the first-ever...
10 June 2019
Tom Swinfield and colleagues at the Forest Ecology and Conservation Group have assessed the quality of three dimensional forest models produced from drone surveys, and conclude that concerns about their quality for...
31 May 2019
In this blog, Laure Joanny adds her perspectives to an ongoing discussion that we've been seeing in the community about conservation tech and it's relationship to e-waste. How do we tackle the challenge of battery waste...
3 May 2019
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Hi all, Firstly, I'd just like to say a big thank you to everyone who attended my Tech Tutors presentation last month. And secondly, thank you for your patience in allowing... |
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Biologging, Drones | 3 years 11 months ago | |
We are happy to share that we open a worldwide-first research residency in ecosystem restoration with drones and native seeds. Do you... |
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Drones | 4 years ago | |
Hi all, There is a conversation underway in the "Ethics of conservation tech" group on best practices for responsible use of... |
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Drones | 4 years 2 months ago | |
Hi! We've been using our Mavic 2 Pro to create 3d models and volumetric assessments of mangroves. We're learning more about... |
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Drones | 4 years 3 months ago | |
Hi Ruth, Thanks for your email. Essentially the software is only an advantage if the drones are being flown at altitudes that provide a wide area and less visible detail (i.... |
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Drones | 4 years 5 months ago | |
Hi everyone! We are very excited to announce that the BIRDSAI dataset for conservation drones is now publicly available at https://sites.... |
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Drones | 4 years 5 months ago | |
We are very excited to announce that our open-source drone-reforestation crowdfunding is LIVE! We know climate change is here,... |
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Drones | 4 years 5 months ago | |
Hello, I'm new here. I thought I would share an article that I wrote a couple of years ago about my work with using drones for... |
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Drones | 4 years 6 months ago | |
Hi everyone, I have a LIDAR sensor (LIDAR USA-Fagerman Technologies-Velodyne puck) and a DJI M-600 drone. I would like to use... |
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Drones | 4 years 7 months ago | |
Cheers Al, and looking forward to hearing more about them. I am, as we speak, editing some thermal videos of wallaby behaviour near roads, specifically in relation to devices... |
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Drones | 4 years 7 months ago | |
Really useful to know about that package, thanks |
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Drones | 4 years 8 months ago | |
Hi WILDLABbers! We're looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow in the drones meetup. It's on Wednesday,... |
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Drones | 4 years 8 months ago |
The Wildlife Society Conference
19 June 2023 5:59am
Catch up with The Variety Hour: June 2023
16 June 2023 11:43am
UAV-assisted counts of group size facilitate accurate population surveys of the Critically Endangered cao vit gibbon Nomascus nasutus
13 June 2023 3:51am
This paper explores the use of UAVs equipped with thermal and standard cameras to accurately count the group sizes of the Critically Endangered cao vit gibbon, highlighting how this technology can overcome the limitations of traditional ground-based methods and contribute to more robust population surveys and conservation efforts.
ISO Speakers for Emerging Technologies class.
31 May 2023 4:29pm
2 June 2023 2:08pm
Carly, that would be great! Thanks! I work with soundscapes and love the work of Rainforest Connection! I'll send you an email (@CUNY) to coordinate!
AirSeed: Drone planting takes flight to promote reforestation in flood-affected NSW
30 May 2023 12:28pm
AirSeed has developed a unique approach to tackle climate change and restore biodiversity by combining drone technology, machine learning, and seed pod biotechnology to carry out planting that’s 25x faster than traditional hand-planting methods.
Looking for AI volunteer positions
24 May 2023 5:41am
24 May 2023 3:45pm
Hi Donya! You might check out the Conservation Tech Directory to see what projects/organizations/tools best align with your interests and skills.
Animal tracking stories
22 May 2023 2:19am
Using computer vision to understand bee vision
5 May 2023 1:10am
Here's an innovative project from the Harvey Mudd College Bee Lab that could help us understand how bees view their environments, and thus better protect bee habitat. This project uses computer vision and drone imagery to replicate "bee vision" of flowers and how it differs from a human's view of the same habitat.
Researchers use taxidermy bird drones to monitor wildlife
26 April 2023 2:40pm
Interesting project - “Our main goal for this is to develop a nature-friendly drone concept for wildlife monitoring,” Hassanalian said. “Traditional drones are often disruptive to ecosystems due to issues such as sound and unfamiliarity, so developing quieter, natural-looking alternatives could help wildlife monitoring and research.”
Drone imagery management software
17 April 2023 2:17am
21 April 2023 2:41pm
GeoNadir and OpenDroneMap might be of interest for drones?
The Conservation Tech Directory might have some additional projects/tools of note.
AI for Pelicans Challenge
20 April 2023 10:04am
ML-ready datasets for aerial/drone wildlife surveys
29 March 2023 5:27pm
29 March 2023 9:51pm
Excellent resource, Dan!
12 April 2023 5:53pm
Following up here... a few of us huddled virtually and assembled standardized metadata, standardized sample code, and sample annotated images for all the datasets on that list. I don't know whether this exercise was useful, but it was fun!
The URL hasn't changed, but I consider the list open for business now, let us know what we're missing:
https://github.com/agentmorris/agentmorrispublic/blob/main/drone-datasets.md
The 59th Annual Meeting of Illinois Chapter of The Wildlife Society
12 April 2023 5:24am
Advice on afforable LiDAR scanners for Amazon forest surveys
5 April 2023 3:47pm
6 April 2023 6:21pm
Hi Jeremy,
With a quick search I've found the paper linked below. It looks like equipments such as Livox MID are sufficient for plot-level analyses, but not for individual trees. Also, it has performed worse in dense canopies and broadleaf forest, thus I believe we won't have a technology capable of doing what you aim for this amount of money (< $1000) in a few years from now.
I hope someone give us an alternative, though. :D
Best,
Exploring storage options for mass data collection
22 March 2023 3:20am
22 March 2023 7:36pm
Hi Adam!
I mostly live within the ecoacoustics space so I'll just speak on the hydrophone part of your request; Arbimon is a free web/cloud-based platform with unlimited storage for audio files. We've got an uploader app as well for mass-uploading lots of files. There's also a bunch of spectrogram visualization/annotation tools and analysis workflows available. It's AWS running under the hood.
I have some experience working directly with AWS & Microsoft Azure, and I've found personally that AWS was more user-friendly and intuitive for the (fairly simplistic) kinds of tasks I've done.
27 March 2023 5:23am
Synergistic use of UAV surveys, satellite tracking data, and mark-recapture to estimate abundance of elusive species
21 March 2023 5:21pm
We used a combination of high-resolution satellite tracking (Fastloc-GPS), uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) surveys, and capture-mark-recapture approaches to assess the abundance of immature hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) and green turtles (Chelonia mydas) in a tidal lagoon of the Chagos Archipelago (Indian Ocean).
Wildlife Conservation Drones & Technologies Summit 2023
16 March 2023 11:31am
30 March 2023 4:15pm
12 April 2023 5:18am
15 April 2023 3:26pm
Computer Science student looking to work for wildlife
5 March 2023 10:04pm
14 March 2023 2:00pm
Great information! Thank you for sharing this. I actually have Masters in Zoology and have done some field work in Marine Conservation. Since then I have worked in Science education and eventually switched to Software Programming. My dream has always been to work in Conservation, however life happened and I had to give up on this pipe dream. I currently work as a Developer in a contractor role for the Federal Government. Would someone with my experience have an advantage in conservation Tech?
14 March 2023 2:58pm
I think the real demand in conservation tech is for transdisciplianry individuals. If you look at all the stand-out people in this space they are people who occupy multiple domains that are traditionally isolated. These are people who talk fluently in computer science and ecology, for example. Not only this, they are also people who create and imagine in ways that intertwin ideas and concepts across these domains. Its these people, thinking in these ways, that lead to innovations that really move us forward. Some of these people started out where you are now, having crossed domains through their career and then seeing opportunities to bring these skills together in imaginative ways.
14 March 2023 9:53pm
I couldn't agree more with both of these comments tom! I'm reading hundreds (literally hundreds) of applications for open WILDLABS roles at the moment, and the ones that stand out are those where it's really clear they're following genuine curiosity across different disciplines. If you're in conservation, it's the evidence of interest in tech (courses, projects, things you're trying and learning yourself). For tech, it's getting into conservation - all the things you mentioned.
Top 5 things you need to do before flying your drone: A guide for beginners
14 March 2023 7:26pm
Proposals wanted for Innovation in Practice
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6 March 2023 10:34pm
Drones for GIS - Best Practice
17 October 2017 8:22am
31 March 2020 10:38am
We've just created a new version. General updates throughout
version notes
General refresh and update based on knowledge acquired over the last couple of years
Checked links
Updated CAA regulations, drone model advice including Yuneec, sensor advice (including thermal), classification advice, hydrological modelling advice, and nest survey info
15 February 2023 9:39am
This thread continues to be one of the most useful, evergreen resources - even 5+ years later! Who would have thought?
I was speaking to a colleague from another conservation ngo last week - and it came out that she was having to start from scratch developing some consistent internal guidance to support staff members using drones. I've poiinted her here and it's already been super useful, but I'm curious if anyone has newer guidance they've developed to support drone use their organisation that they'd be able to share? If you've updated your guidance, what have you changed or found to be most important?
Reinvigorating this thread might turn out to be super useful for lots of folk and save a lot of time in developing supporting documentation - I appreciate anyone who is able to share!
Thanks
Steph
24 February 2023 12:30pm
Hi all,
I've been quickly developing in-house drone services in the UK for Providence Ecological and have found some useful information for building a workflow with Rich Charpentier's YouTube channel. There are loads of good resources on YouTube but Rich's channel seems to be more useful with regard to budget/free software etc.
It has occurred to me that there may not be very good "Best Practice" guidance for drone pilots with regard to wildlife disturbance so when considering employing a drone pilot, please bear this in mind. It is useful to talk through their experience of avoiding/mitigating disturbance to wildlife during drone operations asnd provide guidance where you feel it is required.
Hopefully this is helpful!
Using drones and camera trapping to track New Hampshire’s moose populations
22 February 2023 9:38pm
Interesting article that links to research on how technology has made studying moose populations easier, with particularly good explanation of what makes moose populations difficult to track.
Texas Chapter of The Wildlife Society’s Annual Meeting 2023
20 February 2023 10:56pm
Recommendations needed: UAV controlled via 4G or 5G and capable of carrying a heat camera?
16 February 2023 3:39pm
Postdoctoral fellowship in drone-assisted collection of environmental DNA.
12 February 2023 4:01pm
Call for Data: A Global Database of Tree Crown Footprints from RGB Imagery
3 February 2023 11:22am
3 February 2023 7:01pm
You should definitely talk with Ben Weinstein and co (the folks behind DeepForest), if you haven't already!
10 February 2023 4:18pm
Bluesky have a commercial tree crown dataset available covering most of Great Britain (England, Wales and parts of Scotland). There is a canopy layer with approximate outlines of each canopy (the image on this page shows just circular crowns). It's created using aerial imagery.
How daredevil drones find nearly extinct plants hiding in cliffs
10 February 2023 11:07am
Nice article about one of the Rainforest XPrize semifinalist teams - using drones to sample plant species. 'Nyberg and the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG) team, working with the State of Hawaii's Division of Forestry and Wildlife, have rediscovered three species thought to be extinct or locally extinct from Kauai and uncovered larger populations of many other critically endangered species with populations smaller than 100 individuals.'
Consultancy opportunity: Wildlife monitoring specialist
31 January 2023 11:26am
31 May 2023 10:21pm
Definitely interested! I'm in the ecoacoustics/acoustic monitoring space, working at Rainforest Connection and Arbimon.