Drone Remote Sensing for Tracking Poaching and Wildlife Conservation

Dear Colleagues,

We are currently living through a major ecological crisis—the sixth mass extinction event in the history of life on Earth. The potential impacts for ecosystems and society are huge, and effectively tackling this challenge requires us to understand and protect the Earth’s vital biodiversity. Monitoring wildlife and preventing poaching is fraught with challenges. Wildlife can be reclusive and sparsely distributed, terrain and habitats can be difficult to navigate from the ground, and the lives of those trying to protect vulnerable species can genuinely be in danger.

Drones allow us to fill the gap between satellite- and ground-based observation of wildlife and habitats. They allow us to cover larger areas than can be surveyed by foot or camera trap surveys quickly, and allow for more detail to be resolved than is possible with satellites. With considerate use, drones could be ideal for surveying a wide range of wildlife with minimal disturbance. The potential for quick deployment and observing without needing rangers out in the field also opens up new anti-poaching opportunities.

Drones also offer a versatile platform for multiple remote sensing instruments, allowing us to observe with thermal and conventional cameras simultaneously, or to take advantage of the insight given by multispectral, hyperspectral, and LiDAR sensors. The growth of drone and remote sensing technology coincides with the increasing capability to process large amounts of data automatically with machine learning and data science. By bringing together community efforts in technological hardware and software, we are undergoing a revolution in how we do ecology and conservation.

Whilst drones, the remote sensors we can mount to them, and cutting-edge data processing techniques present great opportunities for new insights and innovations in conservation, challenges still remain in this rapidly growing area of research. In this Special Issue, we will bring together progress in the use of these new technologies, discuss the challenges remaining to their widespread use, and present new findings from drone-based remote sensing.

Dr. Claire Burke
Guest Editor

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• drones
• conservation technology
• remote sensing
• thermal imaging
• machine learning
• wildlife monitoring
• wildlife surveys
• poaching
• habitat loss