- Drones are extensively used in wildlife conservation, making tasks like habitat surveys, animal tracking, and population estimation easier and more accurate.
- While drones offer numerous advantages, challenges remain, such as limited battery life, increased costs, and the need to use the technology responsibly.
- Researchers emphasise the importance of a participatory approach in wildlife conservation, advocating for the engagement of various stakeholders.
- Drones need to be combined with other technologies, such as radio collaring, to achieve more effective and comprehensive results.
Dugong researcher Sagar Rajpurkar made a significant breakthrough while searching for dugongs in Gujarat’s Gulf of Kutch. “We knew from the feeding trails that dugongs were present in the waters, but we had no sightings or photographic evidence to conclusively confirm it,” Rajpurkar shares with Mongabay India.
The evidence came from drones. Flown over the area multiple times, the mechanical “birds” captured clear visuals of the bulbous animals along the shallow shores. “It was a major breakthrough in our study. Interview surveys by GEER Foundation had estimated the population to be around 10 to 15 individuals in Gujarat,” he adds. Rajpurkar is studying dugongs for the Wildlife Institute of India’s CAMPA-Dugong Project, which is a part of the endangered species recovery programme funded by the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) of the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change (MOEFCC). He says that drones have helped them get sightings from all dugong distribution areas in India — Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Mihir Godbole, founder of The Grasslands Trust, says that aerial photos of wolves captured by drones in Maharashtra’s open natural ecosystems revealed unique characteristics that could potentially revolutionise global wolf studies. Social carnivores such as wolves and hyenas have complex pack hierarchies, and identifying individuals within these packs is crucial for understanding their behaviour. Godbole says that the aerial images of wolves have uncovered distinctive patterns which could be their unique identifiers.
One major challenge in wolf conservation has been the difficulty in identifying individual wolves, unlike in the case of other carnivores such as leopards or tigers. “We are currently studying more than 30 individual wolves using drones and other methods. Without the aerial images captured by the drones, this would not have been possible.” Maharashtra’s forest department and The Habitats Trust are collaborators of this project.

Multiple drone applications
Technology has significantly transformed conservation efforts, particularly in addressing the growing human-wildlife interface outside protected areas. With their ability to fly vast areas and capture detailed imagery, drones are taking conservation efforts to considerable heights. Researchers say drones save hours of human efforts and cuts costs such as that of the fuel.
Last year, Technology for Wildlife Foundation published a report titled Wings for Wildlife, which highlighted the application of aerial drone technology in wildlife and environmental conservation across India. The report features 15 case studies that highlight diverse drone deployments in various landscapes and habitats across the country. Through interviews with researchers, practitioners, forest officers, and technologists, Wings for Wildlife illustrates the significant potential of drones in conserving biodiversity and promoting ecological well-being.
Contributing authors of the report Nancy Alice and Nandini Mehrotra, in an online conversation with Mongabay India, share that drones add to primary data collection and can be an additional tool in existing conservation efforts. “It makes research easier where the habitat is difficult to access. It is especially useful in underwater species study as drones are least intrusive,” says Mehrotra, adding that shy species such as dugongs could be difficult to observe by boat. Drones, on the other hand, when flown over a certain height, do not disturb the animals. Additionally, it poses reduced risk to the researcher in accessing difficult terrains.
Alice adds, “Aerial drones can go quite high up in the sky; observing a wild animal from that height is a huge advantage from being on land and trying to see the animal because of varying field conditions such as sun glare.” The authors also highlight that in the case of underwater species, water turbidity affects sightings on boats which makes drones even more beneficial.
Mehrotra says that since drone technology wasn’t initially developed for wildlife surveys. “What we’re doing is taking off-the-shelf drones and adapting them to study wildlife. And when you’re using them for scientific purposes, rather than just for photographs and videos, we need to find ways to meet the intersection between what the technology can do and how it can be adapted for wildlife study.”

Another drone application in conservation is habitat survey, says Godbole. The team works on open natural ecosystems where the visibility is good for the drones to capture images. “The health of the habitat can be assessed through these images. Even invasives can be identified,” Godbole says.
Ungulate surveys and animal behaviour and population estimation are other areas where The Grasslands Trust uses drones. “Ungulate surveys have not been done before, especially outside protected areas,” says Godbole, adding it was made possible with drones. “Thermal drones help identify wildlife movements in the night. This can help mitigate conflicts as wildlife is mostly nocturnal,” he highlights.
Ganesh Raghunathan of the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) uses drones primarily to monitor elephants and their movements across the undulating landscape of Valparai in Tamil Nadu, in collaboration with the local forest department staff. “The landscape is fragmented and undulating. Elephant herds often split up, go in different directions, and then rejoin later. It becomes difficult to track them on foot, especially in hilly areas,” Raghunathan explains. Drones have filled this gap, making elephant tracking much easier. This has broader implications, he adds, as early warning systems for human-wildlife conflict mitigation largely hinge on meticulously tracking elephant movements. NCF also uses the drone to track other wild animals, translocated elephants (along with radio collaring) or to simply get an understanding of the landscape.
Referring to the many uses of drones, Mehrotra says that drone images can be used to build orthomosaics — high-resolution images that can be used to study a landscape. “A drone can take a single photograph, but when programmed to capture images at set intervals, it can create a grid. For example, the drone takes a series of photographs, which are then stitched together to form a high-resolution image. This image can be used for mapping purposes. We use this technique extensively to create maps that allow us to study habitats in much greater detail. Similarly, drones can also be used to create 3D models,” she elaborates.

Flying above hurdles
All the researchers Mongabay India spoke to emphasise the need for a participatory approach to obtain credible on-ground results in drone-based studies. They highlight that working closely with forest departments and local communities is crucial for success.
Drones, however, come with their own challenges. Limited battery life, meticulously timing animal tracking and getting permissions from the forest department for drone usage, especially in protected areas are some of the challenges researchers grapple with.
Godbole points out that drone flights typically last 25 to 30 minutes. “There are now enhanced models available that can run for 40 to 45 minutes. We often use a combination of drones, local watchers, and camera trap images for wolf studies,” he says, adding, “At night, we rely on thermal drones for monitoring, and for this, we need six to eight spare batteries and two drones to stay active through the night. This can be quite expensive, although it saves human efforts and certain other costs.”
Mehrotra says in many cases, since it’s a new application, it is almost always learning on the job. “No matter how much you plan, you always end up discovering new things as you go,” she says. Certain species demand more precise timing of drone usage than others. For instance, says Mehrotra, “River dolphins only come up to breathe every three to five minutes, and for just a fraction of a second. Timing that perfectly—figuring out when the dolphin will surface, at what angle to position the drone, and how to cover enough area while still capturing clear images—is something you only learn through trial and error.” The key takeaway here is knowing when and where to use the technology, rather than just applying it blindly,” she says.

Responsible use of tech
Raghunathan also cautions that drones need to be used sensibly as it has the potential to be intrusive. The safety of the wildlife and the humans who are using it should be the priority. “Drones shouldn’t be used in such a way that it disturbs the wildlife or alters their behaviour in any way,” he says.
Mehrotra and Alice concur. They point out that the responsible use of the technology cannot be compromised. “The first step is always to assess if it’s (drone use) really necessary, and then you proceed from there,” Alice says. Citing the example of the study of a shy species like gharial she explains, “Gharials are very sensitive to sound. In conservation research, minimising disturbance is essential, so the goal is to determine an operational altitude where drone noise does not alter their natural behaviour. That’s one of the key considerations we have when adapting this technology for specific species.” “It’s important to be aware of both the risks and the advantages, but we should always have the choice to use it ethically,” Mehrotra concludes.
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Editor’s Note: We have updated the population of dugongs estimated by GEER Foundation in Gujarat. The update was made on February 4, 2025.
Banner image: An image of a dugong from Tamil Nadu using a drone. In another study in Gujarat by WII, drones provided the first photographic evidence of dugongs in the Gulf of Kutch. Image by Sagar Rajpurkar/WII.