How will UAVs impact ecological surveying? With this case study we reduce disturbance and increase accuracy while surveying a cave for bats.

Recently we were presented with the challenge of checking a cave for the presence of bats, 40 metres up a sheer rock face. The conventional answer would be for an ecologist to abseil into the cave.
To minimise disturbance to any bats present we used a UAV mounted with a thermal camera and a powerful zoom lens. The weather was definitely against us but our UAV passed the test withstanding strong winds, low light and even heavy rain.

With our drone mounted sensors we were able to inspect the cave successfully from the outside - another fantastic case study for the use of emerging technology in biodiversity and conservation.