Applications Of An Unmanned Aircraft Vehicle And Remote Cameras For Studying A Sub-Arctic Ecosystem
The midcontinent population of lesser snow geese (Anser caerulescens caerulescens) has increased dramatically since the 1960’s due to changing agricultural practices in their southern wintering areas. The destructive foraging and continued population growth of lesser snow geese has resulted in casca...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Text |
| Language: | unknown |
| Published: |
UND Scholarly Commons
2019
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://commons.und.edu/theses/2834 https://commons.und.edu/context/theses/article/3835/viewcontent/Barnas_und_0156D_11591.pdf |
| Summary: | The midcontinent population of lesser snow geese (Anser caerulescens caerulescens) has increased dramatically since the 1960’s due to changing agricultural practices in their southern wintering areas. The destructive foraging and continued population growth of lesser snow geese has resulted in cascading negative impacts on northern ecosystems. Studying remote sub-Arctic ecosystems is logistically challenging, but the advent of remote sensing technologies (such as drones and remote cameras) may assist ecologists in understanding snow goose ecology. Before these tools can be integrated into snow goose research programs, precursor “proof-of-concept” studies are required to validate tool use. The objectives of this study were to investigate the use of unmanned aircraft systems (hereafter “drones”) and remote cameras for studying various aspects of lesser snow goose ecology within the sub-Arctic ecosystem of the Cape Churchill Peninsula, Manitoba, Canada. We first evaluated impacts of drone surveys on wildlife by measuring drone-induced behavioural responses of nesting lesser snow geese using mini-surveillance cameras. We monitored 25 nests with cameras from 2015-2016, comparing behaviours of birds on days with drone surveys, and on days without surveys. Days with drone surveys resulted in decreased low-vigilance behaviours, and increased high-vigilance behaviours. Similarly, overhead vigilance behaviours increased from a baseline 0.03% of observation time to 0.56% when the drone was overhead, indicating birds were likely observing the drone as it flew overhead. Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) were also monitored via video recording during drone flights in 2016, and they responded in a similar fashion to previously published tourism activity impact estimates (mean vigilance bout lengths during drone surveys = 18.7 ± 2.6 seconds). We estimated goose habitat degradation using photointerpretation of drone imagery and compared estimates to those made with ground-based linear transects. We compared estimates between ... |
|---|