Accurate and precise population estimates form the basis of conservation action but are lacking for many arboreal species due to the high costs and difficulty in surveying these species. Recently, researchers have started to use drones to obtain data on animal distribution and density. In this study, we compared ground and drone counts for spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) at their sleeping sites using a custom-built drone fitted with a thermal infrared (TIR) camera. We demonstrated that a drone with a TIR camera can be successfully employed to determine the presence and count the number of spider monkeys in a forested area. Using a concordance analysis, we found high agreement between ground and drone counts for small monkey subgroups (<10 individuals), indicating that the methods do not differ when surveying small subgroups. However, we found low agreement between methods for larger subgroups (>10 individuals), with drone counts being higher than the corresponding ground counts in 83% of surveys. We could identify additional individuals from TIR drone footage due to a greater area covered compared to ground surveys. We recommend using TIR drones for surveys of spider monkey sleeping sites and discuss current challenges to implementation.


    Access

    Download


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Thermal Infrared Imaging from Drones Offers a Major Advance for Spider Monkey Surveys




    Publication date :

    2019




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    Unknown




    3D Advance prediction system for solar panel work through 3D filming using drones

    LEE BONG HEE | European Patent Office | 2024

    Free access

    Major Advance in Automatic NDT

    Emerald Group Publishing | 1986



    Infrared leakage surveys

    Magruder, Jr., P.S. | Engineering Index Backfile | 1961


    Enhancing Wildlife Detection Using Thermal Imaging Drones: Designing the Flight Path

    Byungwoo Chang / Byungmook Hwang / Wontaek Lim et al. | DOAJ | 2025

    Free access