Specialised drones are making it easier to find and monitor some of Victoria's most elusive and endangered animals in native forests, according to new research.
Published in Ecological Applications, the study – led by University of Melbourne Dr Benjamin Wagner – reveals that drones equipped with thermal cameras are improving conservation efforts for iconic and threatened forest wildlife over traditional methods.
"Populations of our endangered wildlife are shrinking due to habitat loss, forest fires, and climate change," Dr Wagner said.
"Monitoring them is crucial to their survival, but as many species spend most of their time high in the trees, they can be incredibly difficult to detect."
Conventional "spotlighting" involves surveyors walking transects of forest at night and catching reflection from animals' eyes using torches. Not only it is slow, labour-intensive and can be hazardous for the surveying team, spotlighting often fails to detect all animals present.
In contrast, the new study found drones can cover up to 10 times the survey area in the same time and with far greater efficiency.
Importantly, the drones' thermal cameras were able to detect the animals body heat from a safe distance above the canopy meaning minimal disruption to them.
The research involved flying thermal drones across up to 200 hectares of forest and conducting ground-based surveys to compare the two methods.
Yellow-bellied glider spotted during a wildlife survey in Victoria's Eucalyptus Forest. Image credit: Dr Benjamin Wagner, University of Melbourne.
Dr Wagner said the study's results were striking.
"Until now, no one had studied the effectiveness of thermal drones in detecting animals at night in native forests," he said.
"Our drones detected all nine tree-dwelling mammals expected in the study areas, finding more than 1000 observations of native mammals, forest birds and ground-dwelling fauna such as bandicoots, wombats, feral deer and cats across study sites for our research."
"We are now scaling this research and have conducted over 100 additional drone surveys, detecting more than 4000 animals to explore wildlife recovery in Victoria's state forests."
The critically endangered Leadbeater's possum and the endangered southern greater glider are among many iconic species likely to benefit from the innovative monitoring approach.
"Using this modern technology, we can map animals across entire forests and see what species co-occur, where rare animals hide, and how some species recolonise after forest fires," Dr Wagner said.
"Innovative approaches to conservation, such as drones, are important to more accurately and efficiently monitor species and give them a real chance at survival."
The research titled Thermal drone surveys to detect arboreal fauna – improving population estimates and threatened species monitoring is described in the journal Ecological Applications.
