LC 00433

The aim of this study is to evaluate how drone surveys compare to other potential methods for monitoring seabird populations in Zeeland. This study will quantify to advantages and shortcomings of using drones with the aid of an experiment. After this evaluation, the drone method will be compared to two established methods: wildlife cameras and traditional ground surveys.

Scope

To help evaluate the viability of using drones for seabird censusing and monitoring, this work makes use of the results of an experiment carried out during the summer of 2019. It must be noted, however, that only one drone model was considered in this study. Moreover, the drone used was an off-the-shelf model on which no attempt of improvement was made. Further, due to flight license restrictions, the drone could only be flown at a maximum of 50 meters.

Finally, the experiment performed to help quantify the performance of the drone as a censusing method only used a small selection of stuffed birds (taxidermy birds) as its subjects. The species of the specimens used only represent a small subset of all the seabird species which forage on the tidal flats of Zeeland. However a range of size and colors was used to select the species in question.