dc.contributor.author | Brisson-Curadeau, É | |
dc.contributor.author | Bird, D | |
dc.contributor.author | Burke, C | |
dc.contributor.author | Fifield, DA | |
dc.contributor.author | Pace, P | |
dc.contributor.author | Sherley, RB | |
dc.contributor.author | Elliott, KH | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2018-04-19T11:53:03Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2017-12-20 | |
dc.description.abstract | Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) provide an opportunity to rapidly census wildlife in remote areas while removing some of the hazards. However, wildlife may respond negatively to the UAVs, thereby skewing counts. We surveyed four species of Arctic cliff-nesting seabirds (glaucous gull Larus hyperboreus, Iceland gull Larus glaucoides, common murre Uria aalge and thick-billed murre Uria lomvia) using a UAV and compared censusing techniques to ground photography. An average of 8.5% of murres flew off in response to the UAV, but >99% of those birds were non-breeders. We were unable to detect any impact of the UAV on breeding success of murres, except at a site where aerial predators were abundant and several birds lost their eggs to predators following UAV flights. Furthermore, we found little evidence for habituation by murres to the UAV. Most gulls flew off in response to the UAV, but returned to the nest within five minutes. Counts of gull nests and adults were similar between UAV and ground photography, however the UAV detected up to 52.4% more chicks because chicks were camouflaged and invisible to ground observers. UAVs provide a less hazardous and potentially more accurate method for surveying wildlife. We provide some simple recommendations for their use. | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | We thank T. Leonard and the Seabird Ecological Reserves Advisory Committee for permission to work at Witless
Bay, the Canadian Wildlife Service for permits to work at Newfoundland and Nunavut and the Government of
Nunavut for permits to work in Nunavut. Newfoundland and Labrador Murre Fund, Bird Studies Canada and
the Molson Foundation directly funded the work. An NSERC Discovery Grant, the Canada Research Chair in
Arctic Ecology and Polar Continental Shelf Project also helped fund the project. We thank T. Burke, G. Sorenson,
T. Lazarus and M. Guigueno for their help and J. Nakoolak for keeping us safe from bears | en_GB |
dc.identifier.citation | Vol. 7: 17884 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1038/s41598-017-18202-3 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/32526 | |
dc.language.iso | en | en_GB |
dc.publisher | Nature Publishing Group | en_GB |
dc.relation.source | Supplementary information accompanies this paper at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-18202-3 | en_GB |
dc.relation.url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29263372 | en_GB |
dc.rights | Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or
format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative
Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Te images or other third party material in this
article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the
material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted
by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the
copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
© The Author(s) 2017 | en_GB |
dc.title | Seabird species vary in behavioural response to drone census | en_GB |
dc.type | Article | en_GB |
dc.date.available | 2018-04-19T11:53:03Z | |
dc.identifier.issn | 2045-2322 | |
exeter.place-of-publication | England | en_GB |
dc.description | This is the final version of the article. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record. | en_GB |
dc.identifier.journal | Scientific Reports | en_GB |