Astronomy helps monitor endangered animals using drones

Currently, conservationists estimate numbers of endangered species by physically counting them or the signs they leave. This is an inexact science, as the animals can be in areas inaccessible to observers. Further problems can arise if species have migrated to another area since the previous census. Signs of their presence, such as abandoned nests, rely on assumptions such as the number of animals that share the nest and the frequency with which the species build and abandon their nests.

The process is time consuming, expensive and inaccurate. So Dr Wich developed a system to monitor them using infrared cameras mounted on drones. Trials at Chester Zoo and Knowsley Safari Park showed that the system could pick up animals on the ground from the heat they gave off, even through tree cover.

But the problem was that they couldn't always identify the species - especially when they were far away. Dr Wich needed a system that could identify different species from their heat signatures. He explained his problem to his neighbour, Dr Steve Longmore, while chatting over the fence. The neighbour was an astronomer and he explained that he knew someone who identified the size and age of far away stars from their heat signatures.

Dr Wich worked with astrophysicist Dr Claire Burke, also at Liverpool John Moores University. She told BBC News that her work in identifying the most massive galaxies in the Universe from the light they emit helped her devise software that could identify different types of animal from the pattern of the heat they give off. Each species, she said, has distinct warmer and colder areas that are unique.

"When we look at animals in the thermal infrared, we're looking at their body heat and they glow in the footage. That glow is very similar to the way that stars and galaxies in space glow," Dr Burke explained. "So we can apply techniques and software used in astronomy for decades to automatically detect and measure this glow".

https://bbc.in/2Eg6DpX