Imagine this: You’ve spent all day trudging up Windom Peak in the high, hot summer sun, and finally, you’ve summited your first Fourteener. And then, with taunting ease, a drone buzzes by.
For most, a swell of anger might distract from this high-achieving accomplishment – the small device a blemish on the vast landscape and a foreboding harbinger of a cluttered world above our heads.
But, for wildlife experts, it’s that perception that needs to change as the use of drones becomes an essential tool for a surprising purpose: conservation.
“The tool is just unbelievable and useful,” said Gustavo Lozada, a technology and information systems manager with The Nature Conservancy in Boulder.
Ever since drones, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, became available to the general public in the early 2010s, the technology has turned into an affordable and popular hobby.
And though most users take drones into wild lands to capture stunning landscapes from the air, conservationists have realized their potential for preserving at-risk areas.
In a 2013 TED Talk, ecologist Lian Pin Koh said drones have become the newest crime fighter against illegal poaching in Africa and Asia, allowing authorities to monitor large swaths of land, while at the same time, avoiding the threat of gunbattles with poachers.
“Not only does a drone give you a bird’s-eye view of the landscape, but it also allows you to capture high-resolution images of things on the ground,” he said. “We believe that drones have tremendous potential not only for combating wildlife crime but also for monitoring the health of these wildlife populations.”
The advantage of using drones for conservation boils down to a few key factors: the device is affordable, easy to operate, provides detailed images or video and can capture hard-to-reach places with relative ease.
Lozada, who leads a program that monitors nature preserves in Colorado, said the device is being used to map and better understand the health of forests and grasslands, and to track wildlife.
“And we can get super high-quality video of preserves to show people the places we are protecting,” he said. “It’s unbelievable the images we can get.”
Federal and state land management agencies, too, have realized the possibilities drones provide for monitoring resources on public lands, though implementation of the tool is in its planning stage.
“I know that our biologists have observed other agencies using them, and we’re trying to figure out the applications,” said Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesman Joe Lewandowski.
Lewandowski said wildlife officials would like to use drones for a number of animal-monitoring projects, such as studying the ways of the elusive Gunnison sage grouse. Yet because the technology is relatively new, it might take some time for the agency to decide how best to use it.
“I think at some point we would use them, but not until we figure out how to use them effectively without disturbing the wildlife,” he said.
The Bureau of Land Management’s Jayson Barangan expressed a similar sentiment. Drones could help any number of initiatives – from tracking raptor nests and prairie dog colonies to finding new or invasive plants – but the agency must look for any unintended consequences first.
“This is sort of a new endeavor,” he said. “The technology is fantastic, and we just want to ensure we use them responsibly.”
Regulations surrounding drones also make it difficult for private operators to monitor public lands.
On National Park Service and Colorado State Wildlife lands, drones are explicitly banned, and conservation groups would like to institute a special permitting process for the use of the aircraft for preservation purposes.
The U.S. Forest Service and BLM allow individuals to operate drones as long as they follow a set of guidelines. Both agencies have the right to institute a no-fly zone in the case of wildfires or search-and-rescue operations.
And the Federal Aviation Administration, the agency that regulates airspace, also holds its own set of rules for drone users that make monitoring difficult, which include “limited line of sight” (how far the drone can travel), altitude restrictions and an outright ban on flying at night.
However, new FAA rules released last month show the agency is slowly adapting to the technology, Lozada said. Operators can now apply for a permit to fly at night if they prove it’s for a beneficial use.
Little by little, he said, the potential realized a few years ago that drones hold for preserving critical lands are coming to fruition.
“It’s getting better and better, but I think you still find a lot of people not understanding this technology, and their perception is not positive,” Lozada said. “I still feel I need to push a lot to convince people and show the positive stuff. But because the need is there, I think people will get it sooner or later.”
