Key Takeaways

  • Wildlife conservation benefits from drones as eyes in the sky for population and habitat monitoring.
  • Boosting analytical power with AI can help speed up results.
  • AI coupled with drone flights can help spot poachers and protect vulnerable populations.

Wildlife conservation is getting help not only from wildlife drones but also from the limitless computing power of artificial intelligence (AI). With diversity under threat, researchers are flying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as wildlife drones to gather information on endangered populations and habitats. To cope with the massive amounts of data generated, AI is helping to speed up results. From remote areas of the planet to endangered populations, drones and AI are working together to extend the reach for conservation and research.

How Are Drones Used in Wildlife Monitoring?

Traditionally, conservation efforts took place on foot or by aerial surveillance, with population counts and habitat assessments performed manually by an observer. The main problems with this approach are access, impact and scale.

  • Access: Wildlife conservation often means working in remote regions of the planet, which aren't always easily accessible. Even traditional aerial survey is difficult if dense scrub blocks visual identification. The Wildlife Society describes how researchers used drones to penetrate dense vegetation in Brazil's Pantanal wetlands, the world's largest tropical floodplain. Images collected over two months counted 66 marsh deer in this delicate ecosystem.
  • Impact: Human presence impacts wildlife, disrupting normal behavior with damaging results on feeding, breeding and hunting. The World Wildlife Fund is using remote drone surveillance to monitor cetaceans in Canada's arctic waters. Without disrupting the bowhead and narwhal whales, researchers witnessed unique behaviors for feeding and hunting that had never previously been seen.
  • Scale: Covering large areas on foot or even with a vehicle is limited, so monitoring an entire population takes a lot of time and may not be possible. The Nature Conservancy in Colorado not only uses drones to track bison movement over inaccessible territory but also picks out cottonwood tree health from the infrared imaging sensors in UAVs.

Replacing direct human observation with drones can help increase wildlife conservation efforts. Although there are issues with regulation for flights beyond the visual range of the operator, drones can help with access to remote areas, and their sensors can cut through dense vegetation. There are also ethical concerns with flying at the correct height to avoid disturbing wildlife. However, once this is addressed and permits are obtained, there will be less impact on the species under observation, so they are free to continue uninterrupted. This is extremely valuable for scientists interested in the behavior of species in the wild.

Drones and AI Meet Conservation

When the power of AI can be combined with drones, wildlife conservation can truly take flight. Drone flights can cover a greater area than traditional methods and, when coupled with AI, can return more results faster. Plus, wildlife drones with AI are not only highly scalable but also teachable. Sensors aboard drones can capture images and features that the human eye may miss, and then, AI can make light work of processing all the incoming data.

AI is already supporting conservation projects around the world. Faster processing speeds help sift through images from camera traps to capture meaningful data from thousands of empty images. The National Wildlife Federation describes how researchers are training AI tools for pattern recognition to identify humpback whales by their songs, whale sharks by their markings and trout by their spots.

Researchers in Botswana use drones for rhino conservation, coupling them with machine learning AI that makes the process much more effective. According to The Wildlife Society, drones are helping monitor rhino populations as they rebound from near extinction. In the 1980s, rhino herds were greatly reduced due to poaching activity, and their recent reintroduction is being closely monitored for the herds' protection. Frequent foot patrols monitor the rhino habitat, but there's often too much to cover and not enough personnel to be completely effective. Enter AI as a solution.

Using wildlife drones, researchers use AI to train detection programs on the images obtained from aerial reconnaissance. The scientists use machine learning to speed up alerts and support foot patrols. The research team's AI can now discriminate between rhino herd movement and human activity. It can even tell the difference between the wardens and poachers simply by analyzing their behavior on the ground. In addition to spotting poachers and protecting rhinos, the AI is helping keep track of other species. The drones can also spot giraffe, elephant and zebra herds.

In short, AI is making a big difference to wildlife conservation as eyes in the sky, and it's just getting started.

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