Affiliation:
1. Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, Saving our Species program, Biodiversity, Conservation and Science, Parramatta, NSW 2150, Australia.
2. University of Canberra, Bruce, ACT 2617, Australia.
Abstract
Drones or unoccupied aerial vehicles are rapidly being used for a spectrum of applications, including replacing traditional occupied aircraft as a means of approaching wildlife from the air. Though less intrusive to wildlife than occupied aircraft, drones can still cause varying levels of disturbance. Policies and protocols to guide lowest-impact drone flights are most likely to succeed if considerations are derived from knowledge from scientific literature. This study examines trends in the scientific literature on using drones to approach wildlife between 2000 and 2020, specifically in relation to the publication types, scientific journals that works are published in, purposes of drone flights reported, taxa studied, and locations of studies. From 223 publications, we observed a large increase in relevant scientific literature, the majority of which were peer-reviewed articles published across 86 scientific journals. The largest proportion of peer-reviewed research articles related to aquatic mammals or aquatic birds and the use or trial of drone flights for conducting population surveys, animal detection, or investigations of animal responses to drone flights. The largest proportion of articles were studies conducted in North America and Australia. Since animal responses to drone flights vary among taxa, populations, and geographic locations, we encourage further growth in the volume of relevant scientific literature needed to inform policies and protocols for specific taxa and (or) locations, particularly where knowledge gaps exist.
Publisher
Canadian Science Publishing
Cited by
11 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献