Researchers have called for greater regulation of drones after finding they were having a big impact on endangered species.
The team, led by PhD candidate Joshua Wilson, carried out 240 drone approaches over flocks of birds in Moreton Bay and found that 11 species were generally unaffected.
“Drones can interrupt birds as they try to rest or feed and birds avoid habitats that are regularly disturbed,” Wilson said.
“If the birds are consistently interrupted or scared away for their preferred habitats, species like the eastern curlew, which migrates thousands of kilometres to breed, may find it difficult to gain the energy they need to survive and reproduce.”
He said a drones had a commercial and recreational benefit and were even used to monitor birds in hard-to-reach locations, but the findings indicated they needed more space.
As a birder it makes perfect sense, birds are smart but their brains are very different from ours and see the world very differently. I’m sure to most birds drones look and sound like horrifying predator monsters from the depths of bird hell.
It’s really too bad, the ability to use a camera drone and take shots from a birds-eye-view, but everything I’ve read about it and just common sense makes getting one for birding a definite no.
Perhaps mini blimps for birding?
That’s ingenious, the only problem I can think of is if a bird of prey sees a slow moving, plump, quiet thing in the sky they would probably try to catch and eat it.