Drone-Monitoring: Improving the Detectability of Threatened Marine Megafauna
Jonathas Barreto, Luciano Cajaíba, João Batista Teixeira, Lorena Nascimento, Amanda Baron Di Giacomo, Nelson Barcelos, Ticiana Fettermann, Agnaldo Silva Martins
Abstract
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs; or drones) are an emerging tool to provide a safer, cheaper, and quieter alternative to traditional methods of studying marine megafauna in a natural environment. The UFES Nectology Laboratory team developed a drone-monitoring to assess the impacts on megafauna related to the Fundão dam mining tailings disaster in the Southeast Brazilian coast. We have developed a systematic pattern to optimize the available resources by covering the largest possible area. The fauna observer can monitor the environment from a privileged angle with virtual reality and subsequently analyzes each video captured in 4k, allowing to deepening behavioral ecology knowledge. Applying the drone-monitoring method, we have observed an increasing detectability by adjusting the camera angle, height, orientation, and speed of the UAV; which saved time and resources for monitoring turtles, sea birds, large fish, and especially small cetaceans efficiently and comparably.