Drones and wildlife conservation - is it a good idea? A passionate take on drones and wildlife conservation/monitoring, including the advantages and limitations.
Yee Von is passionate about wildlife conservation and ecology. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Tasmania. Yee Von’s PhD focuses on large mammal monitoring in Tasmania using unmanned aerial vehicles, a.k.a. drones. She aims to develop species-specific protocols for drone monitoring of Tasmanian animals, as well as site-specific protocols tailored to certain habitats, e.g., agricultural areas, native grassland, open forest, and closed forest. She considers it especially important to figure out the optimum flight altitude to get the best images whilst causing minimal animal disturbance. Her techniques will include the use of thermal imaging cameras for those species that are most active at night, deep-learning tools that will identify and count species observed by the drones on the spot, and complementing drone monitoring with traditional spotlight surveys. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com/tedx