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Over the past few years, you've probably noticed that the world of drones is evolving exponentially. We see them more and more, and they can perform a gigantic array of tasks. For some, it's a hobby, for others it's a profession.
Here, we'll be talking about the leisure aspect of using this little technological marvel. In particular, we'll look at their use to capture unique images of wild animals.
We'll talk about the disadvantages, the advantages and, finally, the regulations that exist to avoid harming wildlife.
NEGATIVE
First and foremost,careless use of a drone can be very harmful to wildlife: that's why regulation sexist. Did you know that using a drone too close to the animals you want tophotograph could be very harmful to them? Not only is the noise made by these devices very disturbing for most animals (many, if not most, animals have much more sensitive hearing than humans), but this noise can stress them to such an extent that they could injure them selves, have difficulty feeding and even have difficulty reproducing.
A few years ago, a viral video caused a sensation on social networks. It showed a mother bear and her cub. "In the video, you can clearly see that she's staring at the drone and pushing the cub down the cliff to protect it from something big and threatening that's fast approaching. She's trying to be a good mother, butin this context, it's bad for her and it's bad for the cub."
As mentioned in an article in La Presse, in 2019, "under normal conditions,the mother bear would never have dragged her cub over such a dangerous cliff." It's important to remember that wild animals aren't used to seeing humans, and they're even less used to seeing and hearing noisy flying machines.When they see something unfamiliar, they react instinctively, and it could even be fatal. A word of advice before filming a particular animal: find out all you can about it!
POSITIVE
From another point of view, drones can be extremely useful in the animal world. For example, many organizations use this type of aircraft to monitor the population of certain species. If the flight distance and altitude are safe, the animals are not disturbed by the noise. What's more, the pilots who carry out this type of capturing are very attentive to the behavior and the slightest sign of stress in the species they are capturing, and move away when they realize that the animals seem disturbed by the drone.
A number of other applications, each more useful than the last, can be carried out using adrone in the animal world. For example, tracking pregnant dolphins, mapping natural environments to monitor the evolution of invasive species, collecting droplets from a whale's breath to identify its DNA, etc.
Finally, it's clear that, used properly and responsibly, drones can be very useful for wildlife and its conservation.
REGULATIONS
For thesafety of animals, Transport Canada has established several regulations. Theseare set out in the Canadian Aviation Regulations (CARs) and the AeronauticalInformation Manual (AIM). It's also important to know that National Parks havetheir own regulations.
- It is forbidden to operate an aircraft in a careless or negligent manner that constitutes or is likely to constitute a danger to the life or property of others.
- Pilots must avoid flying over live stock farms at less than 2,000 ft AGL.
- Permission is required to fly in a national park.
- It is forbidden to use a drone to locate game for hunting purposes.
- It is forbidden to deliberately kill a migratory bird with an aircraft.
- Pilots are prohibited from flying below 2,000 ft AGL when in the vicinity of wildlife herds or over wildlife reserves or bird sanctuaries depicted on the relevant aeronautical charts.
Let's all be aware of and respect these regulations: they're not there for nothing, butto protect the various animal species.
