ArticleBiology letters2015
Approaching birds with drones: first experiments and ethical guidelines.
Article in Biology letters, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Unmanned aircraft systems as a new source of disturbance for wildlife: A systematic review.PloS one · 2017Pooled it
- Mortality Records Guide UAV-Based Assessment of Power-Line Conspicuity at a Black-Necked Crane Breeding Site.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Behavioural responses of Neotropical raptors to drone approaches to nests.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Lessons learned from surveying Galápagos marine iguanas using drones.Frontiers in zoology · 2026Article
- Wildlife Responses to Drone Noise: A Preliminary Approach for Quantifying Disturbance During Single- and Dual-Drone Flights.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Drones in ecology: ten years back and forth.Bioscience · 2025Article
- Light tuned to the avian eye elicits early detection and escape from an approaching aircraft.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Acoustic monitoring with miniature drones shows reduced Myotis bat occurrence with altitude and drone movement.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Best practice guidance for recreational and professional drones near colonial breeding birds.PloS one · 2025Article
- A framework for assessing reliability of observer annotations of aerial wildlife imagery, with insights for deep learning applications.PloS one · 2025Article
- Airborne imagery does not preclude detectability issues in estimating bird colony size.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Drones as a tool to study and monitor endangered Grey Crowned Cranes (Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Impacts of soil erosion and climate change on the built heritage of the Pambamarca Fortress Complex in northern Ecuador.PloS one · 2023Article
- A colonial-nesting seabird shows no heart-rate response to drone-based population surveys.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Monitoring Colonies of Large Gulls Using UAVs: From Individuals to Breeding Pairs.Micromachines · 2022Article
- Using piecewise regression to identify biological phenomena in biotelemetry datasets.The Journal of animal ecology · 2022Article
- Behavioral responses of blue-winged teal and northern shoveler to unmanned aerial vehicle surveys.PloS one · 2022Article
- Responses of turkey vultures to unmanned aircraft systems vary by platform.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Drones, automatic counting tools, and artificial neural networks in wildlife population censusing.Ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Sociability strongly affects the behavioural responses of wild guanacos to drones.Scientific reports · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly called drones, are being increasingly used in ecological research, in particular to approach sensitive wildlife in inaccessible areas. Impact studies leading to recommendations for best practices are urgently needed. We tested the impact of drone colour, speed and flight angle on the behavioural responses of mallards Anas platyrhynchos in a semi-captive situation, and of wild flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus) and common greenshanks (Tringa nebularia) in a wetland area. We performed 204 approach flights with a quadricopter drone, and during 80% of those we could approach unaffected birds to within 4 m. Approach speed, drone colour and repeated flights had no measurable impact on bird behaviour, yet they reacted more to drones approaching vertically. We recommend launching drones farther than 100 m from the birds and adjusting approach distance according to species. Our study is a first step towards a sound use of drones for wildlife research. Further studies should assess the impacts of different drones on other taxa, and monitor physiological indicators of stress in animals exposed to drones according to group sizes and reproductive status.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.