LC 00549

In conclusion, this work undertook to evaluate the viability of using an off-the-shelf drone, the Inspire 2 (DJI), for seabird population monitoring. The evaluation was informed by a drone surveys experiment carried out by the author and his supervisor with the Inspire 2, as well as through a comparison of the methods. In the comparison of methods, the off-the-shelf drone was compared to a method which made use of in-situ wildlife cameras, and to the well-established method of ground surveys.

When the three alternatives were compared in the context of a plausible research project, the wildlife camera method came out as the preferred while the drone method came out as the least preferred method. Ultimately, the drone method suffered most notably from the high amount of disturbance it caused. Thus, the conclusion of this work is the Inspire 2 is not a viable method for monitoring seabird populations on intertidal flats.

It is recommended that future studies investigate the viability of smaller, quieter drones for monitoring seabirds on intertidal flats. The use of a drone custom made to minimise noise while maximising ground sampling distance may yet prove to be the best method for this application going forward.

Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis of the weights used in this work’s comparison of methods should be performed to the robustness of the conclusions presented here. It is likely that, under different weights and value functions, another method may have been chosen. The reader is reminded that most weights and value functions used in this work were simplistic due to the lack of decision maker / stakeholder input.