Assessing use of and reaction to unmanned aerial systems in gray and harbor seals during breeding and molt in the UK
By P. Pomeroy, L. O'Connor, P. Davies. 2015
103 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Wildlife biology applications of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are extensive. Survey, identification, and measurement using UAS equipped with appropriate sensors can now be added to the suite of techniques available for monitoring animals – here we detail our experiences in using UAS to obtain detailed information from groups of seals, which can be difficult to observe from land. Trial flights to survey gray and harbor seals using a range of different platforms and imaging systems have been carried out with varying success at a number of sites in Scotland over the last two years. The best performing UAS system was determined by site, field situation, and the data required. Our systems routinely allow relative abundance, species, age–class, and individual identity to be obtained from images currently, with measures of body size also obtainable but open to refinement. However, the impacts of UAS on target species can also be variable and should be monitored closely. We found variable responses to UAS flight...
Subfields: Ecology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a4cfa2d397f21029a3620d5d70c98304fdd61396
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In Ecology
Citations in the corpus
- Unmanned aircraft systems in wildlife research: current and future applications of a transformative technology (2016, background): “In contrast, Pomeroy et al. (2015) reported that gray (Halichoerus grypus) and harbor (Phoca vitulina) seals exhibited varied, moderate responses to UAS depending on season, reproductive status, and UAS survey heights (ranging from 5–250 m).”
- An Economical Custom-Built Drone for Assessing Whale Health (2017, background): “…variety of applications including aerial surveys, monitoring, habitat use, abundance estimates, photogrammetry and biological sampling e.g., whale “blow” (Hogg et al., 2009; Acevedo-Whitehouse et al., 2010; Hodgson et al., 2013; Durban et al., 2015; Pomeroy et al., 2016; Schofield et al., 2017).”
- Drone Up! Quantifying Whale Behavior From a New Perspective Improves Observational Capacity (2018, background): “…et al., 2016; Schofield et al., 2017), sharks (Rieucau et al., 2008; Gallagher et al., 2018), and assessments of disturbance response to UAS by marine mammals (Pomeroy et al., 2015; Arona et al., 2018; Domínguez-Sánchez et al., 2018) and seabirds (Rümmler et al., 2016; Weimerskirch et al., 2018).”