Endangered animal surveys in remote native bushland
In a vast expanse of native bushland, VicForests faced the daunting task of protecting endangered species from the impact of timber harvesting. With innovative technology, including thermal and visual cameras, they partnered with us to conduct precise and efficient wildlife surveys, ensuring the safety of these precious animals and their habitats.
Customer
VicForests
Location
Victoria wide
Equipment Used
- DJI Matrice 300 with H20N camera and LED spotlight
- DJI Matrice 30 with LED spotlight
Licences and approvals
- Night operation
- Extended Visual Line of Sight (EVLOS)
Problem
VicForests conducts timber harvesting operations in native bushland throughout Victoria. It is essential to conduct accurate surveys to check for endangered species in proposed logging coupes before logging activities take place. Systematic surveys in these coupes using traditional methods are made extremely difficult by the remoteness, inaccessibility, size and safety risks present in some coupes. This coupled with the fact that some tree canopies can extend over 50m high makes it difficult to identify animals in the upper canopy from the ground.
Solution
Using a combination of thermal and visual cameras, coupled with a gimbal mounted LED spotlight, we are able to locate and identify every arboreal animal present throughout the whole coupe areas. Even small animals like parrots are found and identified. When endangered species such as Leadbeater Possums, Greater Gliders and Yellow-Bellied Gliders are found, their exact GPS coordinate is recorded, along with photo/video evidence to confirm their identification. This technology and methodology has allowed VicForests to be certain of the population numbers of threatened and endangered species within proposed coupes and modify their logging operations accordingly.
