Studying Olive Ridley Sea Turtles off Costa Rica with Drones #drone #droneday
From Duke:
Using a fixed-wing drone to conduct aerial surveys of olive ridley sea turtles in waters off Ostional during four days in August 2015, scientists from Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) estimate turtle densities there may reach as high as 2,086 animals per square kilometer during peak nesting season.
“These are extraordinary numbers, much higher than any of us anticipated,” said Seth Sykora-Bodie, a PhD student at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, who co-led the study with Vanessa Bézy, a PhD candidate at UNC-CH.
“Our findings confirm drones can be used as a powerful tool to study sea turtle abundance at sea, and reveal incredible densities of turtles in Ostional’s nearshore habitat,” said Bézy. “The development of this methodology provides vital new insights for future conservation and research.”
Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.