2025 Drone Update - Finding Snow Leopard Prey
Drones have rapidly proven their value in wildlife research across the entire spectrum of applications typically conducted by human observer or with aircraft. Drones cannot census snow leopards; however, our research successfully demonstrated the effective use of drones for censusing snow leopard prey—wild sheep and goats. The aim of our research was to advance snow leopard conservation by improving the precision, repeatability, and efficiency of prey surveys. We summarize the data and conclusions of three phases of field tests in Mongolia in 2019, 2022, and 2025. Test areas were Ikh Nart Nature Reserve, Tost Uul Nature Reserve, and Har Argalant Uul. Our team used off-the-shelf thermal equipped drones that were upgraded with each phase. Progressively, field tests phases moved from validating proof-of-concept—successful ungulate detection—to the effective simulation of human observer transect and point count survey methods. Results progressed, as well, from four successful flights detecting 34-37 animals in Phase One to 43 flights in Phase Two, detecting 250 animals, with 31 % in areas obscured from human observation. Phase Three point counts successfully detected 21 animals after adjustments in the field to account for low ungulate densitity and sensitivity to the visual presence of the field team. Incidentally, we noted that skilled wildlife observers with binoculars detected more animals, 63, and at greater distances than the drone. Our experience with point counts suggests more research is needed to address terrain and behavioral variables, which are not factors in transect counts. Acknowledging that drone efficiencies will continue to rapidly increase each year, we feel more emphasis should be directed toward refining methodologies that optimizes the aerial advantage. Just as it took time for game cameras to reach the stage of abundance estimation with occupancy modeling, the methodology for using drone to census ungulates needs similar time and attention.
Ben Hunter, photographer, videographer.
