The recent Count Your Mob program that mobilised community members to photograph and count our macropods, then upload these to iNaturalist for collating has demonstrated the power of Citizen Science in exposing the inadequacies of remote efforts to make such estimates. But it did require a lot of effort by those terrific volunteers and also left some areas potentially under-sampled.

Drones to the rescue.

Modern drones are easy to operate and can be equipped with advanced sensing systems to aid our citizen-science efforts. In a recent trial by our Landcare affiliates, the Mornington Peninsula Wildlife Action Group (MPWAG) a camera-equipped drone was used to provide an accurate count of a large number of kangaroos trapped inside a fenced-off area and targeted for imminent culling. Viewing from a distance pinpointed the locations of the component groups, which were then individually photographed (see image) and could easily be counted.

The drone was operated at sufficient altitude to ensure that the kangaroos barely reacted to the that buzzing creature overhead and thus suffered less disturbance than a foot survey would have caused. But the process did require a rather laborious effort to arrange the images and count every one of the 540 trapped animals.

Enter a program by the Queensland University of Technology to develop a drone system with infrared sensors backed up by a sophisticated artificial intelligence system that can automatically count every animal. They are deploying this system in the monitoring of koala populations following the disastrous Black Summer bushfires.

As the UTQ program lead, Associate Professor Grant Hamilton said:

“This system will allow Landcare groups, conservation groups, (and) organisations working on protecting and monitoring species to survey large areas in their regions, anywhere in Australia, with the use of drones and thermal imaging detection, and send the data back to us where we can process it.”

Queensland Landcare groups are already training up and there are moves down here to give this serious consideration.

Watch this space.

– Article by Greg Holland. Thanks to MPWAG for the kangaroo image and to UTQ for the drone image.

– Please note that there Landcare does not condone harassing wildlife with drones, and there are restrictions (with heavy penalties) on where drones can operate – for example it is illegal to fly them over National Parks such as Greens Bush.