Thermal drones used to count orangutans in nests in Sabah, Borneo

Orangutans are critically endangered and hard to survey in dense forest. In a 2025 post, The Orangutan Project describes thermal drones used by the Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Programme (HUTAN) in Kinabatangan, Malaysia.

According to the post, the drones pick up the heat from orangutans resting in their nests, flying at about 100 m at night. The team had flown the drones over eight forest areas, and early checks found that no orangutans left their nests during the survey. The location is given here only at the level of the Sabah region.