Performance of unmanned aerial vehicle with thermal imaging, camera trap, and transect survey for monitoring of wildlife

Abstract

Reliable monitoring to obtain ecological data on species is required for effective wildlife management and conservation. However, few monitoring methods are satisfactory in terms of accuracy of the wildlife data produced and cost-effectiveness. Several methods are developed in the last few decades such as camera traps, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with thermal infrared (TIR) imaging may have great potential as a tool for wildlife surveys. We assessed the performance of the camera trap, UAVs-TIR, and traditional ground-based transects survey to the monitoring of wildlife in the IPB University Campus. Camera traps provide the highest number of wildlife records (54 for 22,080 camera days) and allow the identification of several species. Transect survey provides poor records and the most time consuming (24 records for 1,380 h). UAVs-TIR was quite successful in detecting wild animals in the canopy of trees that were not detected by camera traps and transects survey (20 records for 2,208 h of fieldwork). Camera traps and UAVs-TIR are both expensive but they support the fieldwork and provide interesting and much data for further analysis. The use of camera traps and UAVs-TIR simultaneously improves the detection of terrestrial and canopy animals that are often overlooked by the ground observer.