Automating drone-based wildlife surveys saves time and money, study finds

The Great Elephant Census, conducted in 2014 and 2015, counted more than 350,000* elephants across 18 African countries. Human observers in small planes flew some 294,000 kilometers during more than 1,500 hours to systematically count the animals. Could a future census be managed locally, using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, a.k.a. Although surveying the large animals in their individual reserves is a smaller job than the Great Elephant Census, such surveys cost managers substantial time and money. A Swiss research team recently tested a new approach to wildlife surveys.