January 24, 2024 • 32 mins
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S5E52 Steve calls in to Canberra, Australia to chat with Dr Debbie Saunders. For over 20 years Debbie has worked as an ecologist and studied the movements of small migratory birds. This includes the Swift Parrot, one of Australia’s most endangered birds.
Like many small animals, Swift Parrots could only be tracked with tiny, very high frequency (VHF) radio-tags. This meant that in order to understand their movements, researchers would have to regularly trek vast distances with handheld receivers to search for each tagged bird, one at a time. But because the Swift Parrot is a highly mobile creature, tracking them on foot was a near impossible feat.
Frustrated by the limitations of radio-tracking manually, Debbie was inspired to develop a practical solution with wide-ranging applicability. Wildlife Drones is now an award-winning start-up that is currently working with a range of people across Australia, the United States and abroad to track the movements of some of the world’s most endangered species, including bats.
- Discover more about Wildlife Drones and find them on twitter, facebook and Instagram
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Debbie Saunders (00:07):
Hello, you're listening to BatChat the podcast
from the Bat Conservation Trust,where we take you out into the
field to discover the world ofbat conservation.
Welcome back, folks, thispodcast is for anyone with a
fascination in the amazingnocturnal mammals that fill our
(00:27):
skies at night. I'm still veryprofessionally I'm an ecologist.
And in my spare time, I'm atrustee for the Bat Conservation
Trust. If you're listening tothis episode on the day of its
release, hello, I'm currently ona day long road trip to
interview our first guest ofseries six guests. We are
already recording the nextseries for you guys. So check
out my social media, for anysneak peeks of where I am today
and drop us a comment and let usknow what you thought about this
(00:49):
episode. A few weeks back, I gotthe chance to speak with Dr.
Debbie Saunders who resides inCanberra, Australia, Debbie
created the startup wildlifedrones as a result of being
frustrated by the limitations ofmanual radio tracking. The
company is now working with arange of endangered species
across Australia and the UnitedStates. But as you'll hear a
European product is currentlybeing developed. And so Debbie,
(01:11):
thank you very much for joiningus on Batchat today, what's it
like over in Canberra? I'venever been to Australia. So
what's what's what's Canberra,like as a city for a start?
Well, I think we won the awardfor the most livable city in the
world recently, which is, that'spretty cool that I live in that
kind of place. I really like interms of rare able to move
(01:34):
around on bike paths and youknow, I can ride to work, catch
the bus, what have you, everyday, and I've worked surrounded
by natural areas, and we havebats flying over our house every
night. So that's a good thing.
Yeah, well, it's kind of like agrassy open woodland environment
here. And we're sort of in theTablelands or mountains. And so
(01:56):
we're not we're not on thecoast, but we're not up in the
Alps, either. So it's sort of inbetween. Nice.
And so what's your background inconservation technology?
Positive. I mean, we'll talkabout the technology develops in
a minute. But what which camefirst was there's wildlife or
the technology.
Unknown (02:13):
I definitely wildlife.
I've been fascinated by wildlifemy whole life. Even when I was
really young, I just koalas werethe one thing that struck me
initially, and but not just thatthey're beautiful animals and
cuddly than cuddly. But they'reamazing features, you know,
their adaptations to theAustralian bush, as we call it,
was what really captured myimagination. And I've always
(02:36):
just done everything I can to beinvolved. I've done Wildlife
Rehab, from the minimum age, Ijust dived in and did whatever I
could, I volunteered forresearch projects when I was at
university. But not just for oneparticular type of animal, I'm
really fascinated by all formsof wildlife. And so when I was
(02:57):
at university, whenever I didn'tknow something about a
particular group of animals, sayfrogs, for example, I would say
I just go find someone who's anexpert and go, Hey, can I come
help? And they're like, Yeah, ofcourse. So it's been great. And
bats were definitely a part ofthat. And I haven't ever really
been personally worked on thatproject myself. But through my
(03:24):
business I now do work with,with bat researchers across
multiple countries, which isreally cool. And I have done a
bit of bat handling andtrapping, I did a course in bat
handling in trapping at onepoint which, which I loved and
we have done some trapping ofbirds that was sort of late in
(03:44):
the afternoon, and we ended upcatching a bat accidentally
missing it. So have have done abit of that.
Debbie Saunders (03:54):
And whilst back on session, like over in
Australia, you know, what arethe challenges we were talking
before? Before we hit the recordbutton about the two landscapes
that we both live in? What arethe challenges for you over
there?
Unknown (04:06):
Yeah, so I think that's there's a lot of similarities
globally, in terms of theunderstanding of bats and the
appreciation of them in thelandscape. Simply because
they're, they're out at night,you know, people aren't exposed
to them necessarily, and theyget to appreciate them. Here in
Australia, we have you know, themega drop during bats, the fruit
(04:28):
bats, and they often crop areally bad name amongst all
cheetahs and the like forreading crops, what have you,
but I the things that I see isthe promotion of them, you know,
their rain for theirpollinators. I mean, there's
they spread the seeds, andthey're pollinators and in a
really important part of theecosystem. So I think that's a
(04:49):
message that that has been putout there. But I think here a
lot of people do have anawareness of wildlife. And we do
have wildlife in our backyardsall the time, as long as you
have some vegetation, yougenerally have a bit of wildlife
that will come into it. So we'revery fortunate in that way. I
(05:09):
think most people may not reallyunderstand that they're micro
bats. You know anything aboutthe smaller bats, or they
haven't heard anything aboutthem, but I do see them circling
around wherever I go. There'sbats at night, whenever I go
camping or hiking, you know,there's always about to keep a
company as long as it's not toohot, of course.
Debbie Saunders (05:33):
And we've got you on to talk about a new radio
tracking system that you'vetailored, which I'm really
excited to hear about, becauseit sounds like it's going to
solve a lot of problems for usover here in the UK. Where did
the frustration lie with thetechnology that most of us are
used to where, you know, you'retuned to one particular
frequency, and you've got tostay with that frequency to
track your individual?
Unknown (05:51):
Yeah, absolutely. So I guess similar to for bat
researchers, I was at the timeworking on small migratory
birds. And we might my research,my PhD research and my
employment before that wasfocused on trying to understand
the movements and habitat use ofthis migratory bird. And we've
(06:13):
learnt a lot about where it goesin the wintering range, which
was my my task and worked withthe community right across
eastern Australia to dovolunteer surveys to help put
the pieces of the puzzletogether. But what really was
unknown was how do they get fromA to B? When do they get from A
(06:34):
to B from a? And you know, what,what is it that they need along
the way? Or do they just migrateand they don't stop? Do they
need stepping stones, we knewnothing about the movements of
this bird. And it's it wasendangered when I started
working on it. And then itprogressed to critically
endangered. And, and it'sactually severely at risk of
(06:54):
going extinct before my kidsfinished school, which is really
frightening. So I really wantedto shed light on their
movements. And because it's amajor part of their annual
lifecycle, and we knew nothingabout it. That species is
particularly challenging to tagunfortunately, was one of the
(07:15):
other challenges. They have avery sharp beak and very adept
at destroying things. But alsothey fatten up for migration.
And so just attaching a tag witha harness, for example, was
absolutely problematic. And itwas too risky. Because the back
(07:36):
can get entangled in thevegetation or in the nesting
hollow that they're accessing.
And so we weren't able to attacha tag in the way that you hear
of a lot of tags being attachedon migratory birds. So yeah, and
some colleagues of mine hadtagged Swift Parrots, which is
the bird I'm talking about. Andyeah, gone to a lot of trouble
to get the ethics catching thebirds, put the tags on them,
(07:58):
release them to never see themagain. And you know, you can't
justify putting a tag on acritical endangered species that
you're pretty confident you'renever gonna see again, and not
get any value back for thatpopulation. So before we could
even apply to do any tagging, wehad to find a better way to find
them once we release them again.
(08:22):
And this was a very long timeago that the idea came about it
was 2008, I think, had thatidea, working with another
researcher who was working onlions, in fact, in Africa at the
time, and we're both lamentinghow we needed a better tracking
solution. And anyway, dronessort of came up, I guess, in
(08:47):
that conversation. And I'm like,imagine being able to create a
high point review on it. Likethat would be just a game
changer in itself. And then youknow, being able to manoeuvre
across landscapes that you can'teasily get across on the ground
because of tracks and gates andwhat have you, much like the
(09:07):
bird does. And so that was wherethe idea sort of spawned from
and then it took years to findanybody to try and support a
grant. And what have you. Andeventually we did get some grant
money, ran a research project tosee if it was even possible
because nobody had ever done itbefore on a drone. And there
(09:29):
weren't many drones around DJIreally wasn't a thing then. And
so it really it was hard to findpeople who knew drones, and I
wanted someone who knew dronesalready so we could focus on the
radio telemetry side of thingsand get that really good. So we
did a project and proved it waspossible. So that was exciting.
(09:51):
But what we also proved wasthere were many, many flaws in
it as well. The first prototypethat we developed we we couldn't
checks with parrots because ofthe attachment issues. And so we
just we did tag some localresident birds, though. So we
were able to demonstrate on freeranging animals that this was
something that could work. Butthere were many, many
(10:13):
limitations. And then the moneyran out on that. And so we got a
lot of promotion, though,because it was the word first.
And people that I want one ofthose two, and I'm like, oh,
okay, I was just kind of doingit for myself. But that's really
cool. It's other people actuallyfeel the same pain as what I was
(10:33):
feeling. So I then went off intoa bit of a journey, I guess,
from academia, and from workingin government through to our
local innovation network, whereI went to them and said, Look,
I've got this prototype, peopleseem to want it, I need to
validate, you know, do peopleactually want it and I need to
develop a new one, because thisplan is not going to work. But I
(10:56):
knew what all the flaws were.
And I knew what I really wanted,as an ecologist, what do I What
would I want? And what did Iwant. And so I just would have
been go find engineers andothers to work with me for free
for a couple of years, while wevalidated the idea, and all the
rest of it, and, and just seethat there is really the demand
there. And there was so we justcontinued on that, on that
(11:19):
journey. And now, yeah, we havea product that is really easy to
use, and has immense capabilitycompared to the handheld
receiver. And we have clientsacross Australia, in New
Zealand, in Vietnam, and also inthe US who are using it now. So
it's, it's pretty amazing for meas a conservation ecologist
(11:43):
working on one species for mostof my career, to then be able to
help people in different placesof the world working on a real
wide range of species.
Debbie Saunders (11:53):
When you said, you started with the idea back
in 2008, I was thinking fairlyshort jet drones had hardly been
ever heard of back then. So itmust have been quite a challenge
to find someone who knew whatthey were doing with them.
Unknown (12:04):
There are only Yeah, there were only two that I
found. And one was there was arobotics lab at the University
of Sydney. And they do all sortsof really amazing robotics stuff
in the field. And there wasanother government organisation
as well, but they really werecompletely reliant on students.
And I'm just like, No, I justwant a professional to work on
(12:27):
it and get it done. We've onlygot was a three year project.
But it took their full threeyears to really get to something
that we could work with. Yeah,so yeah. And the first drone
was, you'd had a maximum flighttime of eight minutes and could
hardly carry in. The world hascertainly changed in that
(12:47):
regard.
Debbie Saunders (12:48):
So how does this new technology work? You
know, how is it possible thatyou can track 40 tags at once,
rather than just one? What haveyou done to change that
technology?
Unknown (12:58):
Yeah, so we have a radio receiver system that is
essentially an onboard computer.
And the similar type ofdirectional VHF antenna. So that
gets mounted on the drone. Andthere is a real time
communication system between theradio receiver and a base
station laptop. And so we whenpeople purchase our system, we
(13:21):
send them the whole kit. So wejust kind of work straight out
of the box comes in a pelicancase. So there's a laptop and
the payload, and it attaches toan off the shelf drone. So we
don't make a drone.
Specifically, this just clipsonto other ones. And it you
really just like clip it on. Andthis, at the moment, there's no
(13:44):
real integration, we arebuilding a more integrated model
at the moment, which is smallerand lighter and gives you even
more flight time. But it justclips onto the drone. And when
you open up the user interface,it's like a big map,
essentially, with some controlsdown the left hand side, and you
just push start tracking. Andonce you push start tracking,
(14:06):
the radio receiver is listeningall of the time. And so then you
launch the drone. And the firstthing we always recommend is
just fly the drone as far as youcan, if you don't know where
your target animal is, which ismost likely the case for bats
fly the drone as far as you canin the area where you think they
might be. And the whole timeit's in the air. It's actually
(14:30):
displaying in real time, or forup to 40 signals across the
frequency chart. So there's athere's a frequency chart
underneath the map. So it's abit of a brain shift in that at
the moment you're out there withyour arm in the air listening to
the beep beep you know, andfollowing that around. We
actually don't hear anything sothe computer does the listening
(14:53):
and it maps the signals on achart so you can see how strong
the signal is in this chart. SoSo as you fly the drone around,
if you can picture like abreadcrumb trail behind the
behind the drone, those littlebed crumbs appear on the map.
And as soon as it picks up asignal, it lights up green. And
so you can immediately see thatit's picking up something, you
(15:16):
can interact with that. So youcan click on it, and you'll have
a pop up. And it will tell youof all of the up to 40 animals
that you have input thefrequencies for which ones are
you detecting at that point, andyou will, and the output from
that is like a CSV file. So youit's logging continuously while
also mapping it in real time. Soyou can get this immediate
(15:38):
picture of where the activity isif if the bats are moving. So
you can do this at night, orduring the day. It really
depends on the pilots ability tofly and their authorization. But
some people have used it for,you know, looking at where the
better foraging and just seeinghow far they're moving from
perhaps a known root site. Butthen there's the other half of
(16:01):
the people have like caught themwhile they're out foraging and
want to know where they'reroosting. So it can be used for
for either of those purposes,but it's all in real time. And
so it enables you to makedecisions on the ground
straightaway, if you do happento need to go and observe that
or find where that location ison the ground. So
Debbie Saunders (16:22):
with traditional technologies were
used to get an A signal and thenmoving for a few 100 metres to
then triangulate to try andpinpoint exactly where the
batter's is that negated becausethe train is moving around all
the time. So the training,triangulation work is working
all the time, I guess is thathow that in terms of pinpointing
exactly where stuff is?
Unknown (16:40):
Yeah, so there's two different ways of using it. And
this whole just how you fly, youdon't have to do anything
different on the base station,it kind of knows when you're
doing one or the other. So ifyou're just doing this, what we
call the searching mode, whereyou're just flying around, and
you're trying to map out wherewe're generally you're getting
signals for things. So then youcan go and hone in more if you
(17:00):
want to if then if they'reforaging, obviously, they're not
in one location. So you cantriangulate because it's not one
spot. But you can certainlybuild up a you know, I guess a
bit of a heat map, if you likeand where are the signals the
strongest over time for aparticular set of bats. But if
you were looking for roostingsites, then yes, the
(17:21):
triangulation would be where itwhere that comes into play as
well. And you're right. So thedrone basically does the walking
for you. So if you were trying,you say you would do that
searching to figure out whereare you actually getting a good
signal, because there's no youcan't start triangulating until
you've actually got a goodsignal. So once you know where
(17:41):
you're getting that good signal,then just launch the drone and
slowly rotate it. And it willlisten for all of those signals
in every direction. And based onthe signal strength received,
and it can be up to 40. And ifyou have multiple animals, you
just instantly get multiplearrows popping up on the map
saying this one's this way,these ones that way, whatever
(18:02):
and, or they might just be inthe one roost and they'll all be
pointing in the same place. Butyou'll get an initial bearing.
And then based on thatinformation, you then manoeuvre
the drone around, so you don'tunlike manual tracking, where
you're actually honing in on theanimal, you want to actually
manoeuvre the drone not towardsnot in the direction of the
(18:22):
animal but perpendicular tothat, so that you get the best
intersecting angles for yourtriangulation. And you can just
simply build that up by movingthe drone around on different
angles. And we actually put anellipse on the map as well. So
which is an error and errorconfidence. And to shrink the
(18:44):
error, you manoeuvre the droneto be perpendicular to the long
side of that ellipse to bringthat error in. So there's lots
of sort of guidance, I guess onyou know, like, once you get
this, you can do this and tooptimise your data. And it
depends whether you're lookingfor roots or whether you're
actually trying to map out thearea that they're foraging
Debbie Saunders (19:04):
on. That's clever stuff. So how how large
are these drones have to be tolift your antenna then.
Unknown (19:10):
So the drones are a medium sized drone. So
unfortunately, the smaller dronesays that there's a couple of
issues one, it doesn't lift thepayload. So the payload is the
radio receiver and the antenna.
And that at the moment weighsabout one kilo. And so that will
be just the smaller drones won'tbe able to have any decent
(19:33):
flight time with that. The otherissue is and this is the biggest
issue really is noise generatedby the drone. And we're very
fortunate that the first dronewe picked was great for radio
tracking, and it still use westill use it. But they don't
make that one anymore. Andsubsequent models have been
(19:53):
changed the way they manufacturethem and they're very noisy in
the VHF band So there's thespecific models of drones that
are suitable for radio tracking.
So there is a DJI drone, whichis the mitrice 210. And then
there's also an American madedrone called freefly, systems,
(20:14):
Astro. Both of those are havesuitable noise floors, so that
you can listen for those tinylittle tags that you put on
that. Sorry, I don't know if Ianswered the size question, but
the weight of these drones isaround six or seven kilos, the
medium size, sort of drone,
Debbie Saunders (20:32):
and what sort of flight time do you get out of
those, then it's
Unknown (20:35):
around 20 to 25 minutes, okay. But then you can
also pause the tracking. So ifyou do a flight, and you've just
detected something, you canpause tracking on the interface,
bring the drone back, change thebatteries, and launch again, and
then continue tracking. So youcan actually track for quite a
(20:56):
long time in a single session,you're not necessarily limited
to the particular drone flight,and eventually, you know, we aim
to get it onto a verticaltakeoff and land drone. So
that's like a fixed wing dronewith some propellers. So it
launches vertically, but thenflies horizontally. And the
capability in that space isgrowing, and that they can stay
(21:20):
up in the air for hours. And so,you know, maybe one or two hours
at the moment. And so that'ssomething that in the future, we
certainly would like to do thatI think a lot of our clients
would love that. There'sobviously, you know, flight
regulations that need to allowlong range beyond visual line of
sight operations and the like.
But those regulations that theyare advancing, and we have a lot
(21:43):
of open space here in Australia.
So I think we do kind of lead inthat way sometimes, because we
have areas where there'sliterally nobody, it's okay to
fly drones further in thoseplaces. So that's an exciting
prospect, I think, for any ofthese species that are really
(22:04):
mobile and move across biglandscapes.
Debbie Saunders (22:07):
And you've done stuff with bats in both the US
and Australia, you want to talkabout, I guess, the most
exciting project that you didwith those?
Unknown (22:16):
Yeah, well, look, none of them are mine. But um, I
think there's, there's been acouple of like environmental
consultants who do impactassessment work. Some of them
are studying bats on migration.
And, and they actually this isin the US, they were using
piloted aircraft because theyneed to actually go over huge
(22:36):
distances. So we worked withthem to develop an adapter for
the piloted aircraft. So theyhad to fly around in circles for
every single back because theyhad to listen to one and listen
for the next as you can imaginethe expense of the aeroplane.
And now they can just listen toall of them at the same time. So
it's just a game changer forthem. Here in Australia, we, we
(22:58):
helped out with a project by theNew South Wales Government. And
they were actually GPS trackingthe bats with a little radio
receiver attached as well. Andas GPS is so tiny, it doesn't
transmit. So they needed to findthe root site and recapture the
bats to get the data. And Ibelieve it might have been one
(23:20):
of the first projects in theworld to achieve that. So that
was really exciting that we werethere to help track those bats
to the roost. And actually, sothey could get that data and
look at the foraging range. Sothat was an incredibly exciting,
and I think there's a lot ofthere's a lot of work looking at
disease as well. So the whitenose syndrome in the US is
(23:43):
having a massive impact. And soCalifornia Fish and Wildlife
Service also using the systemfor for that purpose in terms of
monitoring bat populations, anddisease control and management.
So that for me is reallyexciting that it can be used for
for so many different use cases.
(24:06):
And I guess another one is wherethe the roosting sites are being
threatened with development. Andso the route is going to be
destroyed. And yet they knownothing about where the bats are
going and what alternatives theyhave. And so tracking bats in
that regard, was was reallyhelpful and being able to search
along sea caves, whichpreviously was just too hard to
(24:29):
do. And now they can just liketake fly the drone out over the
cliff and fly along. So that waspretty amazing. I mean, I wasn't
there. Unfortunately, I wouldhave loved to have been there to
see that. But they sent backsome photos on their work that
they did on the sea caves aswell.
Debbie Saunders (24:47):
Yeah, I know.
When researchers andconservationists listen to this,
they're going to be reallyexcited. And the question that's
gonna be in everyone's mind iswhat's you know, what's the cost
of this if you've got a roughcost at the moment and you say
you develop in it for TheEuropean market at the moment if
you've got a rough cost at themoment,
Unknown (25:04):
yeah, so you are looking, It is an investment.
But I think it's an investmentin the saving of the people's
time and effort. And it veryquickly pays for itself. So in
terms of like, there's, I guessthat's the drone purchase, and
then there's the payloadpurchase as well. And so you are
looking at like a professionalgrade sensors and drone. And so
(25:27):
the drone, both of those areroughly around $25,000. So at
the full kit, you're lookingmaybe 40 to 50 things. And so
yeah, that's the kind of pricepoint that you're looking at,
although, I think, yeah, if thisis going out later, maybe I
don't know if having the pricein there in the discussion is
(25:50):
going to be that helpful,because it might not be relevant
at that point.
Debbie Saunders (25:55):
Yeah, politely say, even though it's, even
though it's an investment, Iguess you're saving people's
time, in terms of man hours onthe ground, I guess.
Unknown (26:04):
It is, and I think that time, it's interesting, right?
So it depends on on what, howyou go about it. And, you know,
if you have people who volunteerand are really happy to go out
and do it manually, then youknow, you can still do that.
And, and that's fine. We just,you know, there's, it depends on
(26:28):
what it's costing you at themoment as to how much of a value
proposition that is, the otherside of it is, a lot of our
clients say we just have, wejust can't even get any data.
And so it's not actually evenjust about the time that people
are spending on the ground, butactually getting something so
(26:49):
that you have something to workwith. And if you can't ever find
them again, if you tag them,release them and never find them
again, I mean, just the the manhours going into the ethics to
do that come out with nothing isheartbreaking. I've been there
and done that. So I think, yeah,and you know, we can, we can
help people with that as well.
Like, if people are wanting todo this type of work, some
(27:12):
people have access to like dronepilots, or they might, you know,
be able to work together. Wehave other like NGOs that go in
together and purchase a systemand use it across multiple
projects and the like. And sothere are those things that are
available. And we do sometimesalso provide information to
(27:33):
people who are applying forgrants on you know, what are
some of the benefits of that,and actually weighing up the
pros and the cons. And it reallydepends on the context, you
know, as where people areworking? Are they in a dense
rainforest where launching adrone is problematic, you know,
we don't want it has to be hasto be fit for purpose. And it
(27:55):
may be that not everyapplication is fit, but for a
lot of them and for bats.
They're hard, right? You know, Iwork on small birds, but that's
a harder again, they're smaller.
But now, you know, we're alsotracking insects now. So we're
tracking giant hornets in theUS. And it's a similar size tag
(28:16):
is to what you put on a bat. Andso you know, the capabilities
there and you can actuallycollect more data and get more
insights on things that were notpreviously possible. So it's
pretty exciting in that regard.
Debbie Saunders (28:34):
And just final question, then. So I guess, I
mean, obviously, you guys areusing it. How do you see the use
of drones in wildlifeconservation moving forward? Do
you think it just going toincrease the the sort of
technology becomes available?
Unknown (28:47):
Absolutely. Like I think the thing is, once once
you've even taken that step ofgetting a pilot's licence,
buying a drone, like there is acommitment that is required.
It's not just a quick fix kindof thing. And you need to
develop your skills in the bestway of flying and optimising
data collection, etc. Much likeany research technique, the more
(29:07):
you do it, the better you get atit. And but once you take to the
skies, for me, I mean, I I'venever flown a drone, I'd never
find anything before I startedon this journey. And but it got
to a point where with theresearch project, everyone else
did the flying or what have you.
And I was just there likeadvising on what I wanted to see
happen. But then I realised thatyou know, I actually need to see
(29:30):
what it takes to actually dothis myself. I can't expect
other people to if I haven'tbeen through it. And so then I
went and got my licence. Andthen I became a commercial pilot
and now I employ pilots and havea business and I like I never
imagined this when I used to gobirdwatching is my job. Yeah, so
I think when I first did take tothe skies, just having that
(29:55):
different perspective on theworld, there's a whole new A lot
of data out there that we'venever collected as well. And
applications for all differenttypes of species changes in
habitat over time monitoring ofall sorts of environmental
factors from the air, whether itbe invasive species impacts, or
in a habitat changes over time,that the potential is immense.
(30:19):
And it's really captivating. Andit's also, I think, a really
important engagement tool forthe community. I think a lot of
people are appreciative now ofdrones, for good applications,
there are a lot of good things,you always hear the horror
stories out there. But as itgets used more and more, there's
(30:41):
a lot more work going into theethics of using drones. And our
application is probably one ofthe most well, it is one of the
most ethical applications inthat we actually don't want to
follow an animal or get close toan animal, we want to track it
from a distance, and we canbecause we're listening, whereas
most other drone applicationsare visual, and it requires you
(31:03):
to be overhead or nearby to thatanimal in order to capture any
sort of information. So from anethical point of view, it's
actually less invasive, to haveto be using a drone than it is
sometimes to be doing it usingmore traditional techniques.
Debbie Saunders (31:23):
And like you say, if you're able to get more
data reliably, then thejustification of of attaching a
tag and doing that invasivebehaviour in the first places,
is even more worthwhile, isn'tit? So yeah, that's great. I
know that lots of people arelistening. I know the last
people listening to this will bereally excited to hear about
this. So thank you very much forcoming on the show. Dr. Debbie
Saunders, thank you very much.
Unknown (31:44):
My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. I look
forward to getting ourtechnology over to Europe and
Africa and other parts of theworld where we haven't been able
to deliver yet. But yeah, keepyour eyes peeled for that later
this year.
Debbie Saunders (31:58):
Brilliant, great stuff. Thank you very
much.
Unknown (32:01):
Thank you.
Debbie Saunders (32:03):
Thank you to Debbie. For that insight. We've
put a link in the show notes tothe wildlife drones website. So
if you'd like to find out more,check out the link. We'll be
back in two weeks time withsomeone who created a product in
the 80s which changed the worldof Bat Conservation forever.
Catch you then
Hello, you're listening to BatChat the podcast
from the Bat Conservation Trust,where we take you out into the
field to discover the world ofbat conservation.
Welcome back, folks, thispodcast is for anyone with a
fascination in the amazingnocturnal mammals that fill our
(00:27):
skies at night. I'm still veryprofessionally I'm an ecologist.
And in my spare time, I'm atrustee for the Bat Conservation
Trust. If you're listening tothis episode on the day of its
release, hello, I'm currently ona day long road trip to
interview our first guest ofseries six guests. We are
already recording the nextseries for you guys. So check
out my social media, for anysneak peeks of where I am today
and drop us a comment and let usknow what you thought about this
(00:49):
episode. A few weeks back, I gotthe chance to speak with Dr.
Debbie Saunders who resides inCanberra, Australia, Debbie
created the startup wildlifedrones as a result of being
frustrated by the limitations ofmanual radio tracking. The
company is now working with arange of endangered species
across Australia and the UnitedStates. But as you'll hear a
European product is currentlybeing developed. And so Debbie,
(01:11):
thank you very much for joiningus on Batchat today, what's it
like over in Canberra? I'venever been to Australia. So
what's what's what's Canberra,like as a city for a start?
Well, I think we won the awardfor the most livable city in the
world recently, which is, that'spretty cool that I live in that
kind of place. I really like interms of rare able to move
(01:34):
around on bike paths and youknow, I can ride to work, catch
the bus, what have you, everyday, and I've worked surrounded
by natural areas, and we havebats flying over our house every
night. So that's a good thing.
Yeah, well, it's kind of like agrassy open woodland environment
here. And we're sort of in theTablelands or mountains. And so
(01:56):
we're not we're not on thecoast, but we're not up in the
Alps, either. So it's sort of inbetween. Nice.
And so what's your background inconservation technology?
Positive. I mean, we'll talkabout the technology develops in
a minute. But what which camefirst was there's wildlife or
the technology.
Unknown (02:13):
I definitely wildlife.
I've been fascinated by wildlifemy whole life. Even when I was
really young, I just koalas werethe one thing that struck me
initially, and but not just thatthey're beautiful animals and
cuddly than cuddly. But they'reamazing features, you know,
their adaptations to theAustralian bush, as we call it,
was what really captured myimagination. And I've always
(02:36):
just done everything I can to beinvolved. I've done Wildlife
Rehab, from the minimum age, Ijust dived in and did whatever I
could, I volunteered forresearch projects when I was at
university. But not just for oneparticular type of animal, I'm
really fascinated by all formsof wildlife. And so when I was
(02:57):
at university, whenever I didn'tknow something about a
particular group of animals, sayfrogs, for example, I would say
I just go find someone who's anexpert and go, Hey, can I come
help? And they're like, Yeah, ofcourse. So it's been great. And
bats were definitely a part ofthat. And I haven't ever really
been personally worked on thatproject myself. But through my
(03:24):
business I now do work with,with bat researchers across
multiple countries, which isreally cool. And I have done a
bit of bat handling andtrapping, I did a course in bat
handling in trapping at onepoint which, which I loved and
we have done some trapping ofbirds that was sort of late in
(03:44):
the afternoon, and we ended upcatching a bat accidentally
missing it. So have have done abit of that.
Debbie Saunders (03:54):
And whilst back on session, like over in
Australia, you know, what arethe challenges we were talking
before? Before we hit the recordbutton about the two landscapes
that we both live in? What arethe challenges for you over
there?
Unknown (04:06):
Yeah, so I think that's there's a lot of similarities
globally, in terms of theunderstanding of bats and the
appreciation of them in thelandscape. Simply because
they're, they're out at night,you know, people aren't exposed
to them necessarily, and theyget to appreciate them. Here in
Australia, we have you know, themega drop during bats, the fruit
(04:28):
bats, and they often crop areally bad name amongst all
cheetahs and the like forreading crops, what have you,
but I the things that I see isthe promotion of them, you know,
their rain for theirpollinators. I mean, there's
they spread the seeds, andthey're pollinators and in a
really important part of theecosystem. So I think that's a
(04:49):
message that that has been putout there. But I think here a
lot of people do have anawareness of wildlife. And we do
have wildlife in our backyardsall the time, as long as you
have some vegetation, yougenerally have a bit of wildlife
that will come into it. So we'revery fortunate in that way. I
(05:09):
think most people may not reallyunderstand that they're micro
bats. You know anything aboutthe smaller bats, or they
haven't heard anything aboutthem, but I do see them circling
around wherever I go. There'sbats at night, whenever I go
camping or hiking, you know,there's always about to keep a
company as long as it's not toohot, of course.
Debbie Saunders (05:33):
And we've got you on to talk about a new radio
tracking system that you'vetailored, which I'm really
excited to hear about, becauseit sounds like it's going to
solve a lot of problems for usover here in the UK. Where did
the frustration lie with thetechnology that most of us are
used to where, you know, you'retuned to one particular
frequency, and you've got tostay with that frequency to
track your individual?
Unknown (05:51):
Yeah, absolutely. So I guess similar to for bat
researchers, I was at the timeworking on small migratory
birds. And we might my research,my PhD research and my
employment before that wasfocused on trying to understand
the movements and habitat use ofthis migratory bird. And we've
(06:13):
learnt a lot about where it goesin the wintering range, which
was my my task and worked withthe community right across
eastern Australia to dovolunteer surveys to help put
the pieces of the puzzletogether. But what really was
unknown was how do they get fromA to B? When do they get from A
(06:34):
to B from a? And you know, what,what is it that they need along
the way? Or do they just migrateand they don't stop? Do they
need stepping stones, we knewnothing about the movements of
this bird. And it's it wasendangered when I started
working on it. And then itprogressed to critically
endangered. And, and it'sactually severely at risk of
(06:54):
going extinct before my kidsfinished school, which is really
frightening. So I really wantedto shed light on their
movements. And because it's amajor part of their annual
lifecycle, and we knew nothingabout it. That species is
particularly challenging to tagunfortunately, was one of the
(07:15):
other challenges. They have avery sharp beak and very adept
at destroying things. But alsothey fatten up for migration.
And so just attaching a tag witha harness, for example, was
absolutely problematic. And itwas too risky. Because the back
(07:36):
can get entangled in thevegetation or in the nesting
hollow that they're accessing.
And so we weren't able to attacha tag in the way that you hear
of a lot of tags being attachedon migratory birds. So yeah, and
some colleagues of mine hadtagged Swift Parrots, which is
the bird I'm talking about. Andyeah, gone to a lot of trouble
to get the ethics catching thebirds, put the tags on them,
(07:58):
release them to never see themagain. And you know, you can't
justify putting a tag on acritical endangered species that
you're pretty confident you'renever gonna see again, and not
get any value back for thatpopulation. So before we could
even apply to do any tagging, wehad to find a better way to find
them once we release them again.
(08:22):
And this was a very long timeago that the idea came about it
was 2008, I think, had thatidea, working with another
researcher who was working onlions, in fact, in Africa at the
time, and we're both lamentinghow we needed a better tracking
solution. And anyway, dronessort of came up, I guess, in
(08:47):
that conversation. And I'm like,imagine being able to create a
high point review on it. Likethat would be just a game
changer in itself. And then youknow, being able to manoeuvre
across landscapes that you can'teasily get across on the ground
because of tracks and gates andwhat have you, much like the
(09:07):
bird does. And so that was wherethe idea sort of spawned from
and then it took years to findanybody to try and support a
grant. And what have you. Andeventually we did get some grant
money, ran a research project tosee if it was even possible
because nobody had ever done itbefore on a drone. And there
(09:29):
weren't many drones around DJIreally wasn't a thing then. And
so it really it was hard to findpeople who knew drones, and I
wanted someone who knew dronesalready so we could focus on the
radio telemetry side of thingsand get that really good. So we
did a project and proved it waspossible. So that was exciting.
(09:51):
But what we also proved wasthere were many, many flaws in
it as well. The first prototypethat we developed we we couldn't
checks with parrots because ofthe attachment issues. And so we
just we did tag some localresident birds, though. So we
were able to demonstrate on freeranging animals that this was
something that could work. Butthere were many, many
(10:13):
limitations. And then the moneyran out on that. And so we got a
lot of promotion, though,because it was the word first.
And people that I want one ofthose two, and I'm like, oh,
okay, I was just kind of doingit for myself. But that's really
cool. It's other people actuallyfeel the same pain as what I was
(10:33):
feeling. So I then went off intoa bit of a journey, I guess,
from academia, and from workingin government through to our
local innovation network, whereI went to them and said, Look,
I've got this prototype, peopleseem to want it, I need to
validate, you know, do peopleactually want it and I need to
develop a new one, because thisplan is not going to work. But I
(10:56):
knew what all the flaws were.
And I knew what I really wanted,as an ecologist, what do I What
would I want? And what did Iwant. And so I just would have
been go find engineers andothers to work with me for free
for a couple of years, while wevalidated the idea, and all the
rest of it, and, and just seethat there is really the demand
there. And there was so we justcontinued on that, on that
(11:19):
journey. And now, yeah, we havea product that is really easy to
use, and has immense capabilitycompared to the handheld
receiver. And we have clientsacross Australia, in New
Zealand, in Vietnam, and also inthe US who are using it now. So
it's, it's pretty amazing for meas a conservation ecologist
(11:43):
working on one species for mostof my career, to then be able to
help people in different placesof the world working on a real
wide range of species.
Debbie Saunders (11:53):
When you said, you started with the idea back
in 2008, I was thinking fairlyshort jet drones had hardly been
ever heard of back then. So itmust have been quite a challenge
to find someone who knew whatthey were doing with them.
Unknown (12:04):
There are only Yeah, there were only two that I
found. And one was there was arobotics lab at the University
of Sydney. And they do all sortsof really amazing robotics stuff
in the field. And there wasanother government organisation
as well, but they really werecompletely reliant on students.
And I'm just like, No, I justwant a professional to work on
(12:27):
it and get it done. We've onlygot was a three year project.
But it took their full threeyears to really get to something
that we could work with. Yeah,so yeah. And the first drone
was, you'd had a maximum flighttime of eight minutes and could
hardly carry in. The world hascertainly changed in that
(12:47):
regard.
Debbie Saunders (12:48):
So how does this new technology work? You
know, how is it possible thatyou can track 40 tags at once,
rather than just one? What haveyou done to change that
technology?
Unknown (12:58):
Yeah, so we have a radio receiver system that is
essentially an onboard computer.
And the similar type ofdirectional VHF antenna. So that
gets mounted on the drone. Andthere is a real time
communication system between theradio receiver and a base
station laptop. And so we whenpeople purchase our system, we
(13:21):
send them the whole kit. So wejust kind of work straight out
of the box comes in a pelicancase. So there's a laptop and
the payload, and it attaches toan off the shelf drone. So we
don't make a drone.
Specifically, this just clipsonto other ones. And it you
really just like clip it on. Andthis, at the moment, there's no
(13:44):
real integration, we arebuilding a more integrated model
at the moment, which is smallerand lighter and gives you even
more flight time. But it justclips onto the drone. And when
you open up the user interface,it's like a big map,
essentially, with some controlsdown the left hand side, and you
just push start tracking. Andonce you push start tracking,
(14:06):
the radio receiver is listeningall of the time. And so then you
launch the drone. And the firstthing we always recommend is
just fly the drone as far as youcan, if you don't know where
your target animal is, which ismost likely the case for bats
fly the drone as far as you canin the area where you think they
might be. And the whole timeit's in the air. It's actually
(14:30):
displaying in real time, or forup to 40 signals across the
frequency chart. So there's athere's a frequency chart
underneath the map. So it's abit of a brain shift in that at
the moment you're out there withyour arm in the air listening to
the beep beep you know, andfollowing that around. We
actually don't hear anything sothe computer does the listening
(14:53):
and it maps the signals on achart so you can see how strong
the signal is in this chart. SoSo as you fly the drone around,
if you can picture like abreadcrumb trail behind the
behind the drone, those littlebed crumbs appear on the map.
And as soon as it picks up asignal, it lights up green. And
so you can immediately see thatit's picking up something, you
(15:16):
can interact with that. So youcan click on it, and you'll have
a pop up. And it will tell youof all of the up to 40 animals
that you have input thefrequencies for which ones are
you detecting at that point, andyou will, and the output from
that is like a CSV file. So youit's logging continuously while
also mapping it in real time. Soyou can get this immediate
(15:38):
picture of where the activity isif if the bats are moving. So
you can do this at night, orduring the day. It really
depends on the pilots ability tofly and their authorization. But
some people have used it for,you know, looking at where the
better foraging and just seeinghow far they're moving from
perhaps a known root site. Butthen there's the other half of
(16:01):
the people have like caught themwhile they're out foraging and
want to know where they'reroosting. So it can be used for
for either of those purposes,but it's all in real time. And
so it enables you to makedecisions on the ground
straightaway, if you do happento need to go and observe that
or find where that location ison the ground. So
Debbie Saunders (16:22):
with traditional technologies were
used to get an A signal and thenmoving for a few 100 metres to
then triangulate to try andpinpoint exactly where the
batter's is that negated becausethe train is moving around all
the time. So the training,triangulation work is working
all the time, I guess is thathow that in terms of pinpointing
exactly where stuff is?
Unknown (16:40):
Yeah, so there's two different ways of using it. And
this whole just how you fly, youdon't have to do anything
different on the base station,it kind of knows when you're
doing one or the other. So ifyou're just doing this, what we
call the searching mode, whereyou're just flying around, and
you're trying to map out wherewe're generally you're getting
signals for things. So then youcan go and hone in more if you
(17:00):
want to if then if they'reforaging, obviously, they're not
in one location. So you cantriangulate because it's not one
spot. But you can certainlybuild up a you know, I guess a
bit of a heat map, if you likeand where are the signals the
strongest over time for aparticular set of bats. But if
you were looking for roostingsites, then yes, the
(17:21):
triangulation would be where itwhere that comes into play as
well. And you're right. So thedrone basically does the walking
for you. So if you were trying,you say you would do that
searching to figure out whereare you actually getting a good
signal, because there's no youcan't start triangulating until
you've actually got a goodsignal. So once you know where
(17:41):
you're getting that good signal,then just launch the drone and
slowly rotate it. And it willlisten for all of those signals
in every direction. And based onthe signal strength received,
and it can be up to 40. And ifyou have multiple animals, you
just instantly get multiplearrows popping up on the map
saying this one's this way,these ones that way, whatever
(18:02):
and, or they might just be inthe one roost and they'll all be
pointing in the same place. Butyou'll get an initial bearing.
And then based on thatinformation, you then manoeuvre
the drone around, so you don'tunlike manual tracking, where
you're actually honing in on theanimal, you want to actually
manoeuvre the drone not towardsnot in the direction of the
(18:22):
animal but perpendicular tothat, so that you get the best
intersecting angles for yourtriangulation. And you can just
simply build that up by movingthe drone around on different
angles. And we actually put anellipse on the map as well. So
which is an error and errorconfidence. And to shrink the
(18:44):
error, you manoeuvre the droneto be perpendicular to the long
side of that ellipse to bringthat error in. So there's lots
of sort of guidance, I guess onyou know, like, once you get
this, you can do this and tooptimise your data. And it
depends whether you're lookingfor roots or whether you're
actually trying to map out thearea that they're foraging
Debbie Saunders (19:04):
on. That's clever stuff. So how how large
are these drones have to be tolift your antenna then.
Unknown (19:10):
So the drones are a medium sized drone. So
unfortunately, the smaller dronesays that there's a couple of
issues one, it doesn't lift thepayload. So the payload is the
radio receiver and the antenna.
And that at the moment weighsabout one kilo. And so that will
be just the smaller drones won'tbe able to have any decent
(19:33):
flight time with that. The otherissue is and this is the biggest
issue really is noise generatedby the drone. And we're very
fortunate that the first dronewe picked was great for radio
tracking, and it still use westill use it. But they don't
make that one anymore. Andsubsequent models have been
(19:53):
changed the way they manufacturethem and they're very noisy in
the VHF band So there's thespecific models of drones that
are suitable for radio tracking.
So there is a DJI drone, whichis the mitrice 210. And then
there's also an American madedrone called freefly, systems,
(20:14):
Astro. Both of those are havesuitable noise floors, so that
you can listen for those tinylittle tags that you put on
that. Sorry, I don't know if Ianswered the size question, but
the weight of these drones isaround six or seven kilos, the
medium size, sort of drone,
Debbie Saunders (20:32):
and what sort of flight time do you get out of
those, then it's
Unknown (20:35):
around 20 to 25 minutes, okay. But then you can
also pause the tracking. So ifyou do a flight, and you've just
detected something, you canpause tracking on the interface,
bring the drone back, change thebatteries, and launch again, and
then continue tracking. So youcan actually track for quite a
(20:56):
long time in a single session,you're not necessarily limited
to the particular drone flight,and eventually, you know, we aim
to get it onto a verticaltakeoff and land drone. So
that's like a fixed wing dronewith some propellers. So it
launches vertically, but thenflies horizontally. And the
capability in that space isgrowing, and that they can stay
(21:20):
up in the air for hours. And so,you know, maybe one or two hours
at the moment. And so that'ssomething that in the future, we
certainly would like to do thatI think a lot of our clients
would love that. There'sobviously, you know, flight
regulations that need to allowlong range beyond visual line of
sight operations and the like.
But those regulations that theyare advancing, and we have a lot
(21:43):
of open space here in Australia.
So I think we do kind of lead inthat way sometimes, because we
have areas where there'sliterally nobody, it's okay to
fly drones further in thoseplaces. So that's an exciting
prospect, I think, for any ofthese species that are really
(22:04):
mobile and move across biglandscapes.
Debbie Saunders (22:07):
And you've done stuff with bats in both the US
and Australia, you want to talkabout, I guess, the most
exciting project that you didwith those?
Unknown (22:16):
Yeah, well, look, none of them are mine. But um, I
think there's, there's been acouple of like environmental
consultants who do impactassessment work. Some of them
are studying bats on migration.
And, and they actually this isin the US, they were using
piloted aircraft because theyneed to actually go over huge
(22:36):
distances. So we worked withthem to develop an adapter for
the piloted aircraft. So theyhad to fly around in circles for
every single back because theyhad to listen to one and listen
for the next as you can imaginethe expense of the aeroplane.
And now they can just listen toall of them at the same time. So
it's just a game changer forthem. Here in Australia, we, we
(22:58):
helped out with a project by theNew South Wales Government. And
they were actually GPS trackingthe bats with a little radio
receiver attached as well. Andas GPS is so tiny, it doesn't
transmit. So they needed to findthe root site and recapture the
bats to get the data. And Ibelieve it might have been one
(23:20):
of the first projects in theworld to achieve that. So that
was really exciting that we werethere to help track those bats
to the roost. And actually, sothey could get that data and
look at the foraging range. Sothat was an incredibly exciting,
and I think there's a lot ofthere's a lot of work looking at
disease as well. So the whitenose syndrome in the US is
(23:43):
having a massive impact. And soCalifornia Fish and Wildlife
Service also using the systemfor for that purpose in terms of
monitoring bat populations, anddisease control and management.
So that for me is reallyexciting that it can be used for
for so many different use cases.
(24:06):
And I guess another one is wherethe the roosting sites are being
threatened with development. Andso the route is going to be
destroyed. And yet they knownothing about where the bats are
going and what alternatives theyhave. And so tracking bats in
that regard, was was reallyhelpful and being able to search
along sea caves, whichpreviously was just too hard to
(24:29):
do. And now they can just liketake fly the drone out over the
cliff and fly along. So that waspretty amazing. I mean, I wasn't
there. Unfortunately, I wouldhave loved to have been there to
see that. But they sent backsome photos on their work that
they did on the sea caves aswell.
Debbie Saunders (24:47):
Yeah, I know.
When researchers andconservationists listen to this,
they're going to be reallyexcited. And the question that's
gonna be in everyone's mind iswhat's you know, what's the cost
of this if you've got a roughcost at the moment and you say
you develop in it for TheEuropean market at the moment if
you've got a rough cost at themoment,
Unknown (25:04):
yeah, so you are looking, It is an investment.
But I think it's an investmentin the saving of the people's
time and effort. And it veryquickly pays for itself. So in
terms of like, there's, I guessthat's the drone purchase, and
then there's the payloadpurchase as well. And so you are
looking at like a professionalgrade sensors and drone. And so
(25:27):
the drone, both of those areroughly around $25,000. So at
the full kit, you're lookingmaybe 40 to 50 things. And so
yeah, that's the kind of pricepoint that you're looking at,
although, I think, yeah, if thisis going out later, maybe I
don't know if having the pricein there in the discussion is
(25:50):
going to be that helpful,because it might not be relevant
at that point.
Debbie Saunders (25:55):
Yeah, politely say, even though it's, even
though it's an investment, Iguess you're saving people's
time, in terms of man hours onthe ground, I guess.
Unknown (26:04):
It is, and I think that time, it's interesting, right?
So it depends on on what, howyou go about it. And, you know,
if you have people who volunteerand are really happy to go out
and do it manually, then youknow, you can still do that.
And, and that's fine. We just,you know, there's, it depends on
(26:28):
what it's costing you at themoment as to how much of a value
proposition that is, the otherside of it is, a lot of our
clients say we just have, wejust can't even get any data.
And so it's not actually evenjust about the time that people
are spending on the ground, butactually getting something so
(26:49):
that you have something to workwith. And if you can't ever find
them again, if you tag them,release them and never find them
again, I mean, just the the manhours going into the ethics to
do that come out with nothing isheartbreaking. I've been there
and done that. So I think, yeah,and you know, we can, we can
help people with that as well.
Like, if people are wanting todo this type of work, some
(27:12):
people have access to like dronepilots, or they might, you know,
be able to work together. Wehave other like NGOs that go in
together and purchase a systemand use it across multiple
projects and the like. And sothere are those things that are
available. And we do sometimesalso provide information to
(27:33):
people who are applying forgrants on you know, what are
some of the benefits of that,and actually weighing up the
pros and the cons. And it reallydepends on the context, you
know, as where people areworking? Are they in a dense
rainforest where launching adrone is problematic, you know,
we don't want it has to be hasto be fit for purpose. And it
(27:55):
may be that not everyapplication is fit, but for a
lot of them and for bats.
They're hard, right? You know, Iwork on small birds, but that's
a harder again, they're smaller.
But now, you know, we're alsotracking insects now. So we're
tracking giant hornets in theUS. And it's a similar size tag
(28:16):
is to what you put on a bat. Andso you know, the capabilities
there and you can actuallycollect more data and get more
insights on things that were notpreviously possible. So it's
pretty exciting in that regard.
Debbie Saunders (28:34):
And just final question, then. So I guess, I
mean, obviously, you guys areusing it. How do you see the use
of drones in wildlifeconservation moving forward? Do
you think it just going toincrease the the sort of
technology becomes available?
Unknown (28:47):
Absolutely. Like I think the thing is, once once
you've even taken that step ofgetting a pilot's licence,
buying a drone, like there is acommitment that is required.
It's not just a quick fix kindof thing. And you need to
develop your skills in the bestway of flying and optimising
data collection, etc. Much likeany research technique, the more
(29:07):
you do it, the better you get atit. And but once you take to the
skies, for me, I mean, I I'venever flown a drone, I'd never
find anything before I startedon this journey. And but it got
to a point where with theresearch project, everyone else
did the flying or what have you.
And I was just there likeadvising on what I wanted to see
happen. But then I realised thatyou know, I actually need to see
(29:30):
what it takes to actually dothis myself. I can't expect
other people to if I haven'tbeen through it. And so then I
went and got my licence. Andthen I became a commercial pilot
and now I employ pilots and havea business and I like I never
imagined this when I used to gobirdwatching is my job. Yeah, so
I think when I first did take tothe skies, just having that
(29:55):
different perspective on theworld, there's a whole new A lot
of data out there that we'venever collected as well. And
applications for all differenttypes of species changes in
habitat over time monitoring ofall sorts of environmental
factors from the air, whether itbe invasive species impacts, or
in a habitat changes over time,that the potential is immense.
(30:19):
And it's really captivating. Andit's also, I think, a really
important engagement tool forthe community. I think a lot of
people are appreciative now ofdrones, for good applications,
there are a lot of good things,you always hear the horror
stories out there. But as itgets used more and more, there's
(30:41):
a lot more work going into theethics of using drones. And our
application is probably one ofthe most well, it is one of the
most ethical applications inthat we actually don't want to
follow an animal or get close toan animal, we want to track it
from a distance, and we canbecause we're listening, whereas
most other drone applicationsare visual, and it requires you
(31:03):
to be overhead or nearby to thatanimal in order to capture any
sort of information. So from anethical point of view, it's
actually less invasive, to haveto be using a drone than it is
sometimes to be doing it usingmore traditional techniques.
Debbie Saunders (31:23):
And like you say, if you're able to get more
data reliably, then thejustification of of attaching a
tag and doing that invasivebehaviour in the first places,
is even more worthwhile, isn'tit? So yeah, that's great. I
know that lots of people arelistening. I know the last
people listening to this will bereally excited to hear about
this. So thank you very much forcoming on the show. Dr. Debbie
Saunders, thank you very much.
Unknown (31:44):
My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. I look
forward to getting ourtechnology over to Europe and
Africa and other parts of theworld where we haven't been able
to deliver yet. But yeah, keepyour eyes peeled for that later
this year.
Debbie Saunders (31:58):
Brilliant, great stuff. Thank you very
much.
Unknown (32:01):
Thank you.
Debbie Saunders (32:03):
Thank you to Debbie. For that insight. We've
put a link in the show notes tothe wildlife drones website. So
if you'd like to find out more,check out the link. We'll be
back in two weeks time withsomeone who created a product in
the 80s which changed the worldof Bat Conservation forever.
Catch you then
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