Wildlife Tourism Malpractice Can Lead to Animal Poisoning with Plastics.

Wildlife watching of free ranging animals has positive effects on the people and the environment, such as providing income for species and areas protection and facilitating visitors’ environmental education. However, when visitors or tour operators ignore guidelines to protect wildlife, it can also have negative effects such as animals stress; alterations in space use and breeding success of certain species; and habitat degradation. This work reports a tourism practice that introduces a new potential risk for wildlife: animal poisoning, observed during a touristic boat trip in Lake Naivasha in Kenya. The guide stuffed a fish with polystyrene, whistled, stood up, shook up the fish to get the attention of the eagles, threw it to the water and an African Fish Eagle got it and ate it. Other tourist reports and online comments suggest that this practice is widespread and may be affecting other species and habitats. The use of polystyrene involves substantial poison risks including physical impairment and toxicological effects for the eagles, negatively affects other species and contributes to environmental pollution. In addition to the polystyrene-related risk that the study highlights here for its novelty, the touristic practice is based on wildlife attraction through artificial feeding that can alter natural animal behavior patterns and population numbers. The intervention of local authorities may be needed to discourage polystyrene use and control this inappropriate guides’ behavior. Besides, tourism education must be promoted to guarantee the compatibility of wildlife tourism with environmental protection

The future of technology in conservation

This final chapter discusses how conservation technology might evolve in the near future. The first section provides a global overview of the current scope of conservation technology. The second section focusses on the current limitations of conservation technology and describes advances that may help overcoming these constraints. I then discuss technological trends such as robotics and virtual reality, that are not widely used in conservation yet but offer promise to address current conservation challenges. I follow that with examples of integrating different technologies - with and without human intervention- in conservation research and management. Finally, I will touch on the barriers to integrating technology into conservation and propose solutions to overcome them

Sistemas aéreos no tripulados (UAS o drones) en investigación y gestión medioambiental.

El uso de sistemas aéreos no tripulados (drones) en trabajos medioambientales ha adquirido gran popularidad en los últimos años. Las principales ventajas que ofrecen los drones sobre los métodos convencionales son: 1) la capacidad para obtener imágenes de alta resolución espacial mediante cámaras embarcadas y 2) la facilidad de despliegue, que permite obtener datos de modo inmediato y en cualquier tipo de terreno. La perspectiva aérea que ofrecen los drones resulta útil para monitorizar las poblaciones animales, caracterizar las formaciones vegetales y realizar estudios de ecología e impacto ambiental. La rapidez con la que pueden desplegarse los equipos sirve para dar respuestas eficaces a crisis ambientales como episodios de contaminación, vertidos, incendios, caza y pesca ilegal, extracción de madera o sobreexplotación de recursos naturales. Aunque las restricciones legales limitan considerablemente el potencial de los drones para trabajos a gran escala, es de esperar que en el futuro cercano se produzcan avances como cargas útiles más innovadoras y la integración de los sistemas en redes de sensores que abren nuevas perspectivas para una monitorización integrada del medio natural

Ungulate behavioral responses to the heterogeneous road-network of a touristic protected area in Africa

Understanding how wildlife responds to road and traffic is essential for effective conservation. Yet, not many studies have evaluated how roads influence wildlife in protected areas, particularly within the large iconic African National Parks where tourism is mainly based on sightings from motorized vehicles with the consequent development and intense use of roads. To reduce this knowledge gap, we studied the behavioral response and local spatial distribution of impala Aepyceros melampus along the heterogeneous (with variation in road surface type and traffic intensity) road-network of Kruger National Park (KNP, South Africa). We surveyed different types of roads (paved and unpaved) recording the occurrence of flight responses among sighted impala and describing their local spatial distribution (in relation to the roads). We observed relatively few flight responses (19.5% of 118 observations), suggesting impalas could be partly habituated to vehicles in KNP. In addition, impala local distribution is apparently unaffected by unpaved roads, yet animals seem to avoid the close proximity of paved roads. Overall, our results suggest a negative, albeit small, effect of traffic intensity, and of presence of pavement on roads on the behavior of impala at KNP. Future studies would be necessary to understand how roads influence other species, but our results show that even within a protected area that has been well-visited for a long time, wildlife can still be affected by roads and traffic. This result has ecological (e.g., changes in spatial distribution of fauna) and management implications (e.g., challenges of facilitating wildlife sightings while minimizing disturbance) for protected areas where touristic activities are largely based on driving.Peer reviewe

Advancing road ecology in Africa with robust analyses and cautious inferences: a response to Jackson et al. (2017)

Jackson et al. (2017) have written an extensive commentary on our published study of ungulate behavioral responses to roads and traffic in South Africa (Mulero-Pazmany, D’Amico & Gonzalez-Suarez, 2016). We welcome the opportunity to engage in discussion regarding road ecology in Africa and how to best assess impacts and interpret findings. We all agree that understanding anthropogenic impacts, including those of roads and traffic, on wildlife and protected areas is important and that speculative inferences should be avoided. However, we find Jackson et al.’s criticism largely unsubstantiated and affected by statistical misconceptions and errors. We comment on the key points made by Jackson et al. (2017) below

Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems as a Rhinoceros Anti-Poaching Tool in Africa

Over the last years there has been a massive increase in rhinoceros poaching incidents, with more than two individuals killed per day in South Africa in the first months of 2013. Immediate actions are needed to preserve current populations and the agents involved in their protection are demanding new technologies to increase their efficiency in the field. We assessed the use of remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) to monitor for poaching activities. We performed 20 flights with 3 types of cameras: visual photo, HD video and thermal video, to test the ability of the systems to detect (a) rhinoceros, (b) people acting as poachers and (c) to do fence surveillance. The study area consisted of several large game farms in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa. The targets were better detected at the lowest altitudes, but to operate the plane safely and in a discreet way, altitudes between 100 and 180 m were the most convenient. Open areas facilitated target detection, while forest habitats complicated it. Detectability using visual cameras was higher at morning and midday, but the thermal camera provided the best images in the morning and at night. Considering not only the technical capabilities of the systems but also the poacherś modus operandi and the current control methods, we propose RPAS usage as a tool for surveillance of sensitive areas, for supporting field anti-poaching operations, as a deterrent tool for poachers and as a complementary method for rhinoceros ecology research. Here, we demonstrate that low cost RPAS can be useful for rhinoceros stakeholders for field control procedures. There are, however, important practical limitations that should be considered for their successful and realistic integration in the anti-poaching battle

Species’ Traits as Predictors of Avoidance towards Roads and Traffic

Road-networks and their associated motorized traffic pose a threat to biodiversity and ecosystems, with different groups of species exhibiting different avoidance responses. The often species-specific nature of these behavioural responses to roads and traffic suggest that morphological, ecological, life-history and behavioural traits could be useful in explaining and predicting these responses. Trait-based predictive models have been used to assess extinction risk, land use impacts, and road mortality. Here we present the first, to our knowledge, test of their potential to address animal road avoidance. We studied the fleeing responses and spatial distribution in relation to roads of diverse ungulate species across three South African protected areas. Our results show that smaller, solitary species with non-grazing food habits are more likely to flee in response to presence of a vehicle. None of the tested traits showed a clear relationship based on biological hypotheses with initial distance to roads and tolerance distance to vehicles (used to describe behavioural avoidance towards roads and vehicles, respectively). However, we found significant effects that supported proposed methodological hypotheses. Our results show the potential to use traits as indicators of vehicle and traffic avoidance. Obtaining behavioural avoidance data in the field for many species and areas can be time consuming, but here we show it may be possible to use available trait data to generally predict species responses. This could be useful for initial species risk assessments

Measuring disturbance at a swift breeding colonies due to the visual aspects of a drone: a quasi-experiment study

There is a growing body of research indicating that drones can disturb animals. However, it is usually unclear whether the disturbance is due to visual or auditory cues. Here, we examined the effect of drone flights on the behaviour of great dusky swifts Cypseloides senex and white-collared swifts Streptoprocne zonaris in two breeding sites where drone noise was obscured by environmental noise from waterfalls and any disturbance must be largely visual. We performed 12 experimental flights with a multirotor drone at different vertical, horizontal and diagonal distances from the colonies. From all flights, 17% caused  50 m and that recreational flights should be discouraged or conducted at larger distances (e.g. 100 m) in nesting birds areas such as waterfalls, canyons and caves

Terrestrial Megafauna Response to Drone Noise Levels in Ex Situ Areas

Drone use has significantly grown in recent years, and there is a knowledge gap on how the noise produced by these systems may affect animals. We investigated how 18 species of megafauna reacted to drone sound pressure levels at different frequencies. The sound pressure level on the low frequency generated by the drone did not change the studied species’ behavior, except for the Asian elephant. All other studied species showed higher noise sensitivity at medium and high frequencies. The Asian elephant was the most sensitive species to drone noise, mainly at low frequencies. Felines supported the highest sound pressure level before showing behavioral reactions. Our results suggest that drone sound pressure levels in different frequencies cause behavioral changes that differ among species, which is relevant to assessing drone disturbances in ex situ environments. The findings presented here can help to reduce drone impact for target species and serve as an experimental study for future drone use guidelines.M.M.P. contract is funded by the European Union “NextGenerationEU” Programa María Zambrano, Ministerio de Universidades, Spain. Fundación Barcelona Zoo, 310557 Project (Ayuntamiento de Barcelona)

Unmanned Aircraft Systems complement biologging in spatial ecology studies

The knowledge about the spatial ecology and distribution of organisms is important for both basic and applied science. Biologging is one of the most popular methods for obtaining information about spatial distribution of animals, but requires capturing the animals and is often limited by costs and data retrieval. Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) have proven their efficacy for wildlife surveillance and habitat monitoring, but their potential contribution to the prediction of animal distribution patterns and abundance has not been thoroughly evaluated. In this study, we assess the usefulness of UAS overflights to (1) get data to model the distribution of free-ranging cattle for a comparison with results obtained from biologged (GPS-GSM collared) cattle and (2) predict species densities for a comparison with actual density in a protected area. UAS and biologging derived data models provided similar distribution patterns. Predictions from the UAS model overestimated cattle densities, which may be associated with higher aggregated distributions of this species. Overall, while the particular researcher interests and species characteristics will influence the method of choice for each study, we demonstrate here that UAS constitute a noninvasive methodology able to provide accurate spatial data useful for ecological research, wildlife management and rangeland planning.This study was conducted within the AEROMAB Project (Andalusia Government, Project for Excellence, 2007, P07-RNM-03246) and the PLANET Project (European Commission 7th FP Grant Agreement No. 257649). The present work also benefited from the financial aid of the research grants JCCM ref. PEII10-0262-7673 and Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion ref. AGL2013-48523-C3-1-R. J.A. Barasona received funding from the Spanish Ministerio de Economıa y Competitividad (MINECO) and JCCM. P. Acevedo is supported by MINECO and Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM) through a “Ramon y Cajal” contract (RYC-2012-11970)