Using drones to detect koalas

CSIRO - Using drones to detect koalas

 

[Music plays and an image appears of a circle, and photos move through of various Koala Monitoring activities in the circle, and then the circle morphs into the CSIRO logo]

[Images move through to show Dr John McEvoy looking down, John’s hands setting up a drone, and then John talking to the camera holding the drone, and text appears: Dr John McEvoy, Quantitative Ecologist]

Dr John McEvoy: The National Koala Monitoring Program uses drones in our koala surveys to help us find koalas, where we may not be able to find them from the ground or using other methods.

[Images move through to show a drone taking off, John watching and operating the flying drone, and then John talking to the camera while holding the drone]

The advantages of using a drone in our work is that, for one thing, the drone can cover a lot more area than we could potentially on foot, so it can cover quite large areas.

[Image changes to show a koala perched high up in the forks of a tree canopy]

Now some areas where we look for koalas, and particularly where the trees are very tall, you can struggle to see them from the ground because they're way up there in the canopy.

[Image changes to show an aerial view of a drone flying over sparse bushland as the camera pans left]

Whereas the drone can fly up above the canopy looking down and can get a really good bird's eye view of the of the canopy and spot those, those koalas up there.

[Images move through to show John talking to the camera, the drone’s camera rotating, John’s hands operating the drone’s controller, and then John looking up while using the drone’s controller]

So we usually fly very early in the morning or just after sunset when things are a little bit cooler and the camera can pick out these hot areas where you can see the body heat of the koalas in the trees.

[Image changes to show John talking to the camera while holding the drone]

The method we use with drones is that we set up a predetermined line or a shape that the drone will follow.

[Image changes to show the drone taking flight as John’s hands operate the controller in the foreground, and then the image changes to show an aerial view of the drone flying over a bush path]

So the drone goes up and it starts following its line.

[Image changes to show John talking to the camera while holding the drone]

As it's going along if on the screen we see anything that could potentially be a koala, we pause, we fly the drone directly over that area, and we look at what comes up on the screen as a hot blob, and we try to determine if it is actually a koala or some other animal.

[Images move through to show a figure shining a torch into a tree canopy at night, views of colleagues using torches walking and shinning a light into a tree at night, and torchlight showing a koala in a tree]

And if we need to, we send a ground team in and they can go in with spotlights and confirm that it definitely is or isn't a koala.

[Image changes to show John talking to the camera while holding the drone]

Once we're done, we can then hit a button that says return to track and the drone will go back to its predetermined line and continue following along its survey until it spots something else.

[Music plays as image changes to show a white screen with the CSIRO logo above text: Australia’s National Science Agency]