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Drones tested for counting Amazon river dolphins on the Juruá River in Brazil

In November 2016 researchers compared drone and boat surveys of tucuxi and pink river dolphins on the Juruá River and found drones gave higher accuracy for counting animals in groups. Later work in the Mamirauá reserve added thermal cameras.

Added

Organisation
WWF-Brasil and Mamirauá Institute for Sustainable Development
Location
Amazonas state, Brazil, Brazil
Year
2016
Category
Conservation

Two Amazon dolphin species, the tucuxi and the pink river dolphin, are hard to count because of the size of the river system and the cost of surveys. Researchers from WWF-Brasil, the Mamirauá Institute, Liverpool John Moores University and Fundación Omacha compared drone surveys with visual surveys over about 80 km of the Juruá River in Brazil in November 2016.

According to the Oryx paper, the aerial surveys provided higher accuracy than human observers in counting individuals detected in groups, although drones detected animals only up to about 100 m away compared with up to 300 m for boat observers. An AFP report from 2018 describes the related EcoDrones project in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve, where researchers used drones, including thermal cameras for night observation, to watch pink river dolphins.

Location: Amazonas state, Brazil

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Sources

Checked against 2 sources.

  1. Effectiveness of unmanned aerial vehicles to detect Amazon dolphins (Oryx, 2020) https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605319000279
  2. Drones fly to rescue of Amazon wildlife (AFP via Arab News, 2018) https://www.arabnews.com/lifestyle/drones-fly-to-rescue-of-amazon-wildlife-1357276

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