Next, they programmed a UAV to fly to the bear’s most recent location, and monitored the data to see how the bears reacted to the five minute long drone flights.
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The first question that might occur is why researchers would bother bears with drones in the first place: in their study they explain that “with the widespread increase in UAV flights, it is critical to understand whether UAVs act as stressors to wildlife and to quantify that impact”.
Fearless scientists from the University of Minnesota, St. Paul outfitted four free-roaming black bears with Global Positioning System collars and heart rate monitors so that they could study the effect that drones, a.k.a. unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), had on them.
Two of the bears were mothers with cubs, one was a hibernating female, and the final was a young male.
Researchers thought that they were doing a favor to the animals by using these devices, but that might not be the case anymore.
Ditmer and colleagues wanted to look at the bears’ reaction, because drones are increasingly used in research and conservation – not to mention by hobbyists – with little known about their effects on wildlife.
Bears Get Stressed Out by Drones, Researchers at University of Minnesota say. Though the bears may opt to freeze in response, he points out, other species might have a flight response, and even be unexpectedly driven into residential areas or onto highways. One of the bears increased her heart rate by approximately 400 percent, from 41 beats per minute to 162 beats per minute. They also found that the maximum heart rate in the collared bears was higher on days when a flyover occurred than on days without one. They found that the buzzing aircraft stressed them out.
The development of drone technology is still persisting and they are also used for monitoring and discouraging poachers along with tracking wildlife for ecotourism. “Instead of having to send our research assistants to walk the forest for a week counting nests, we can now survey the same area using drones in a matter of hours”.
“By no means are we advocating against the use of UAVs, especially for research or conservation”, Dr. Ditmer said.
Fortunately, once the UAVs disappeared, the bears covered quickly.
All of the bears in the study responded to UAV flights with elevated heart rates. “We’re just highlighting a potential issue that needs to come into closer consideration when we decide where and where to use them”, he said.
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UAVs or drones have become widely used by wildlife researchers to help to observe animals, particulary endangered species, and their natural settings.
