Abstract
An important component of wildlife management and conservation is monitoring the health and population size of wildlife species. Monitoring the population size of an animal group can inform researchers of habitat use, potential changes in habitat and resulting behavioral adaptations, individual health, and the effectiveness of conservation efforts. Arboreal monkeys are difficult to monitor as their habitat is often poorly accessible and most monkey species have some degree of camouflage, making them hard to observe in and below the tree canopy. Surveys conducted using uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with thermal infrared (TIR) cameras can help overcome these limitations by flying above the canopy and using the contrast between the warm body temperature of the monkeys and the cooler background vegetation, reducing issues with impassable terrain and animal camouflage. We evaluated the technical and procedural elements associated with conducting UAV-TIR surveys for arboreal and terrestrial macaque species. Primary imaging missions and analyses were conducted over a monkey park housing approximately 160 semi-free-ranging Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata). We demonstrate Repeat Station Imaging (RSI) procedures using co-registered TIR image pairs facilitate the use of image differencing to detect targets that were moving during rapid sequence imaging passes. We also show that 3D point clouds may be generated from highly overlapping UAV-TIR image sets in a forested setting using structure from motion (SfM) image processing techniques. A point cloud showing area-wide elevation values was generated from TIR imagery, but it lacked sufficient point density to reliably determine the 3D locations of monkeys.
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The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems program (BCS-1826839). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Support was also provided from the San Diego State University for a research stipend and the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation for supporting travel and data collection. Ulf Scherling from CUAS for performing the UAV mission at Affenberg. Affenberg Landskron and the manager of the park, Svenja and Peter Gaubatz, and the animal care staff who provided access and support for our surveys over the monkey park.
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Mirka, B., Stow, D.A., Paulus, G. et al. Evaluation of thermal infrared imaging from uninhabited aerial vehicles for arboreal wildlife surveillance. Environ Monit Assess 194, 512 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-10152-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-10152-2