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Unmanned Aerial Survey of Elephants

The use of a UAS (Unmanned Aircraft System) was tested to survey large mammals in the Nazinga Game Ranch in the south of Burkina Faso. The Gatewing ×100™ equipped with a Ricoh GR III camera was used to test animal reaction as the UAS passed, and visibility on the images. No reaction was recorded as...

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Autores principales: Vermeulen, Cédric, Lejeune, Philippe, Lisein, Jonathan, Sawadogo, Prosper, Bouché, Philippe
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3566131/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23405088
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0054700
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author Vermeulen, Cédric
Lejeune, Philippe
Lisein, Jonathan
Sawadogo, Prosper
Bouché, Philippe
author_facet Vermeulen, Cédric
Lejeune, Philippe
Lisein, Jonathan
Sawadogo, Prosper
Bouché, Philippe
author_sort Vermeulen, Cédric
collection PubMed
description The use of a UAS (Unmanned Aircraft System) was tested to survey large mammals in the Nazinga Game Ranch in the south of Burkina Faso. The Gatewing ×100™ equipped with a Ricoh GR III camera was used to test animal reaction as the UAS passed, and visibility on the images. No reaction was recorded as the UAS passed at a height of 100 m. Observations, made on a set of more than 7000 images, revealed that only elephants (Loxodonta africana) were easily visible while medium and small sized mammals were not. The easy observation of elephants allows experts to enumerate them on images acquired at a height of 100 m. We, therefore, implemented an aerial strip sample count along transects used for the annual wildlife foot count. A total of 34 elephants were recorded on 4 transects, each overflown twice. The elephant density was estimated at 2.47 elephants/km(2) with a coefficient of variation (CV%) of 36.10%. The main drawback of our UAS was its low autonomy (45 min). Increased endurance of small UAS is required to replace manned aircraft survey of large areas (about 1000 km of transect per day vs 40 km for our UAS). The monitoring strategy should be adapted according to the sampling plan. Also, the UAS is as expensive as a second-hand light aircraft. However the logistic and flight implementation are easier, the running costs are lower and its use is safer. Technological evolution will make civil UAS more efficient, allowing them to compete with light aircraft for aerial wildlife surveys.
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spelling pubmed-35661312013-02-12 Unmanned Aerial Survey of Elephants Vermeulen, Cédric Lejeune, Philippe Lisein, Jonathan Sawadogo, Prosper Bouché, Philippe PLoS One Research Article The use of a UAS (Unmanned Aircraft System) was tested to survey large mammals in the Nazinga Game Ranch in the south of Burkina Faso. The Gatewing ×100™ equipped with a Ricoh GR III camera was used to test animal reaction as the UAS passed, and visibility on the images. No reaction was recorded as the UAS passed at a height of 100 m. Observations, made on a set of more than 7000 images, revealed that only elephants (Loxodonta africana) were easily visible while medium and small sized mammals were not. The easy observation of elephants allows experts to enumerate them on images acquired at a height of 100 m. We, therefore, implemented an aerial strip sample count along transects used for the annual wildlife foot count. A total of 34 elephants were recorded on 4 transects, each overflown twice. The elephant density was estimated at 2.47 elephants/km(2) with a coefficient of variation (CV%) of 36.10%. The main drawback of our UAS was its low autonomy (45 min). Increased endurance of small UAS is required to replace manned aircraft survey of large areas (about 1000 km of transect per day vs 40 km for our UAS). The monitoring strategy should be adapted according to the sampling plan. Also, the UAS is as expensive as a second-hand light aircraft. However the logistic and flight implementation are easier, the running costs are lower and its use is safer. Technological evolution will make civil UAS more efficient, allowing them to compete with light aircraft for aerial wildlife surveys. Public Library of Science 2013-02-06 /pmc/articles/PMC3566131/ /pubmed/23405088 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0054700 Text en © 2013 Vermeulen et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Vermeulen, Cédric
Lejeune, Philippe
Lisein, Jonathan
Sawadogo, Prosper
Bouché, Philippe
Unmanned Aerial Survey of Elephants
title Unmanned Aerial Survey of Elephants
title_full Unmanned Aerial Survey of Elephants
title_fullStr Unmanned Aerial Survey of Elephants
title_full_unstemmed Unmanned Aerial Survey of Elephants
title_short Unmanned Aerial Survey of Elephants
title_sort unmanned aerial survey of elephants
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3566131/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23405088
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0054700
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