Drones for Good

Conservation

Fixed-wing drone counts king penguin colonies on South Georgia

Researchers used a beyond-visual-line-of-sight fixed-wing drone to image six large king penguin colonies. Drone-derived counts were within 3.5% of manual reference counts where imagery was high resolution.

Added

Organisation
British Antarctic Survey, Bangor University and Durham University
Location
South Georgia, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
Year
2024
Category
Conservation

Counting penguin colonies on remote sub-Antarctic islands is difficult by hand or from satellite imagery. A team from the British Antarctic Survey, Bangor University and Durham University compared methods for six large king penguin colonies on South Georgia, ranging from about 10,671 to 132,577 pairs.

According to the published record (November 2024), a fixed-wing drone flown beyond visual line of sight produced imagery and digital surface models. Where high-resolution drone imagery was available, accuracy was within 3.5% of manual reference counts. The year of the fieldwork is not stated on the page, so 2024 is the publication year. Separately, MercoPress reported in January 2024 that BAS researchers used drones flying at 50 m to check higher-altitude survey photos on Zavodovski Island in the South Sandwich Islands.

Location: South Georgia

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Sources

Checked against 2 sources.

  1. A comparison of established and digital surface model (DSM)-based methods to determine population estimates and densities for king penguin colonies (Bangor University record) https://research.bangor.ac.uk/en/publications/a-comparison-of-established-and-digital-surface-model-dsm-based-m/
  2. BAS scientists carry out aerial survey of sub-Antarctic's largest penguin colony (MercoPress) https://en.mercopress.com/2024/01/23/bas-scientists-carry-out-aerial-survey-of-sub-antarctic-largest-penguin-colony

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