Thermal drone surveys to detect arboreal fauna: Improving population estimates and threatened species monitoring.

ABSTRACT: Sound methods to determine species occurrence and abundance are crucial for successful wildlife management and conservation. When species communities cannot be readily detected using camera traps or acoustic monitoring, ground survey methods such as spotlighting on foot are commonly used. While able to provide precise detection and density estimates, these methods can be laborious and time consuming and are restricted to surveying small areas. Advances in drone technology now allow for the detection of heat signatures of endothermal wildlife using thermal cameras from the sky, which we contrast to traditional ground surveys. We found that drone and ground surveys achieve similar detection probabilities for nocturnal arboreal mammals of southeastern Australia. Drones achieved high detection

SUBMITTER: Wagner B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12426585 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature