Detection of two Arctic birds in Greenland and an endangered bird in Korea using RGB and thermal cameras with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), so-called ‘drones’, have been widely used to monitor wild animals. Here, we tested a UAV with red, green, and blue (RGB) and thermal cameras to detect free-living birds in a high Arctic region in North Greenland and in a restricted area in the Republic of Korea. Smal...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:6726231 2023-05-15T13:29:58+02:00 Detection of two Arctic birds in Greenland and an endangered bird in Korea using RGB and thermal cameras with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) Lee, Won Young Park, Mijin Hyun, Chang-Uk 2019-09-04 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6726231/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31483842 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222088 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6726231/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31483842 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222088 © 2019 Lee et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2019 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222088 2019-09-22T00:18:52Z Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), so-called ‘drones’, have been widely used to monitor wild animals. Here, we tested a UAV with red, green, and blue (RGB) and thermal cameras to detect free-living birds in a high Arctic region in North Greenland and in a restricted area in the Republic of Korea. Small flocks of molting pink-footed geese (Anser brachyrhynchus) near sea ice and incubating common ringed plovers (Charadrius hiaticula) in the Arctic environment were chosen for the RGB and thermal image studies. From the acquired images, we built mosaicked RGB images and coregistered thermal images, and estimated the animal shapes. Our results showed that geese were discriminated in both RGB and thermal images with water and sea ice backgrounds. Incubating plover bodies were not distinguished in RGB images due to their cryptic coloration, but they were detected in thermal images with cold background areas in the Arctic environment. We further conducted a blind survey in a restricted area under military control in Korea near the breeding sites of black-faced spoonbill (Platalea minor), which is an endangered species. From UAV flights with RGB and thermal cameras operated out of the restricted area, we acquired images of white objects in the mudflats and verified that the objects were resting spoonbills by watching the birds. We suggest that thermal cameras and UAVs can be applied to monitor animals in extreme environments and in restricted areas and help researchers find cryptic wader nests. Text Anser brachyrhynchus Arctic birds Arctic Charadrius hiaticula Greenland North Greenland Sea ice PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic Greenland PLOS ONE 14 9 e0222088 |
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Research Article Lee, Won Young Park, Mijin Hyun, Chang-Uk Detection of two Arctic birds in Greenland and an endangered bird in Korea using RGB and thermal cameras with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) |
topic_facet |
Research Article |
description |
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), so-called ‘drones’, have been widely used to monitor wild animals. Here, we tested a UAV with red, green, and blue (RGB) and thermal cameras to detect free-living birds in a high Arctic region in North Greenland and in a restricted area in the Republic of Korea. Small flocks of molting pink-footed geese (Anser brachyrhynchus) near sea ice and incubating common ringed plovers (Charadrius hiaticula) in the Arctic environment were chosen for the RGB and thermal image studies. From the acquired images, we built mosaicked RGB images and coregistered thermal images, and estimated the animal shapes. Our results showed that geese were discriminated in both RGB and thermal images with water and sea ice backgrounds. Incubating plover bodies were not distinguished in RGB images due to their cryptic coloration, but they were detected in thermal images with cold background areas in the Arctic environment. We further conducted a blind survey in a restricted area under military control in Korea near the breeding sites of black-faced spoonbill (Platalea minor), which is an endangered species. From UAV flights with RGB and thermal cameras operated out of the restricted area, we acquired images of white objects in the mudflats and verified that the objects were resting spoonbills by watching the birds. We suggest that thermal cameras and UAVs can be applied to monitor animals in extreme environments and in restricted areas and help researchers find cryptic wader nests. |
format |
Text |
author |
Lee, Won Young Park, Mijin Hyun, Chang-Uk |
author_facet |
Lee, Won Young Park, Mijin Hyun, Chang-Uk |
author_sort |
Lee, Won Young |
title |
Detection of two Arctic birds in Greenland and an endangered bird in Korea using RGB and thermal cameras with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) |
title_short |
Detection of two Arctic birds in Greenland and an endangered bird in Korea using RGB and thermal cameras with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) |
title_full |
Detection of two Arctic birds in Greenland and an endangered bird in Korea using RGB and thermal cameras with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) |
title_fullStr |
Detection of two Arctic birds in Greenland and an endangered bird in Korea using RGB and thermal cameras with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) |
title_full_unstemmed |
Detection of two Arctic birds in Greenland and an endangered bird in Korea using RGB and thermal cameras with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) |
title_sort |
detection of two arctic birds in greenland and an endangered bird in korea using rgb and thermal cameras with an unmanned aerial vehicle (uav) |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6726231/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31483842 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222088 |
geographic |
Arctic Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Greenland |
genre |
Anser brachyrhynchus Arctic birds Arctic Charadrius hiaticula Greenland North Greenland Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Anser brachyrhynchus Arctic birds Arctic Charadrius hiaticula Greenland North Greenland Sea ice |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6726231/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31483842 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222088 |
op_rights |
© 2019 Lee et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222088 |
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PLOS ONE |
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14 |
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