Abstract
Unmanned aerial systems (UAS), commonly referred to as drones, are finding applications in several ecological research areas since remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) technology has ceased to be a military prerogative. Fixed-wing RPA have been tested for line transect aerial surveys of geographically dispersed marine mammal species. Despite many advantages, their systematic use is far from a reality. Low altitude, long endurance systems are still highly priced. Regulatory bodies also impose limitations while struggling to cope with UAS rapid technological evolution. In contrast, small vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAS have become increasingly affordable but lack the flight endurance required for long-range aerial surveys. Although this issue and civil aviation regulations prevent the use of VTOL UAS for marine mammal abundance estimation on a large scale, recent studies have highlighted other potential applications. The present note represents a general overview on the use of UAS as a survey tool for marine mammal studies. The literature pertaining to UAS marine mammal research applications is considered with special concern for advantages and limitations of the survey design. The use of lightweight VTOL UAS to collect marine mammal behavioral data is also discussed.
Highlights
In the last decade, several studies have highlighted advantages and drawbacks of the use of lightweight unmanned aerial systems (UAS) for spatial ecology and wildlife monitoring
We present a general overview of three Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) classes that have been used for marine mammal surveys and the relevant literature
The studies presented in this note did not provide any exhaustive comparisons with manned aerial surveys, apart from noting that fuel consumption is significantly less for remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) [14,15] and the costs for running UAS operations are similar for manned aircraft surveys [17]
Summary
Several studies have highlighted advantages and drawbacks of the use of lightweight unmanned aerial systems (UAS) for spatial ecology and wildlife monitoring (see respectively Anderson and Gaston [1] and Linchant et al [2] for comprehensive reviews). UAS have been proposed as a tool for marine mammal surveys, as they allow researchers to reach remote areas and observe animals from an advantageous perspective, being less invasive than standard aircraft [3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. Aerial photogrammetry is a valuable method to gain indication of the health status of individuals extracting measurements of animal bodies from high resolution pictures taken from above (e.g., [4,9,26,27]) This method is costly and can cause disturbances for the targeted animals, as it requires standard aircraft to fly over them [28,29,30,31]. We discuss the use of VTOL UAS as a novel tool to study marine mammal behavior
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