Testing a key assumption of using drones as frightening devices: Do birds perceive drones as risky?

IF 4.6 Q2 MATERIALS SCIENCE, BIOMATERIALS
Conor C. Egan, B. F. Blackwell, E. Fernández‐Juricic, Page E. Klug
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引用次数: 23

Abstract

Wildlife managers have recently suggested the use of unmanned aircraft systems or drones as nonlethal hazing tools to deter birds from areas of human-wildlife conflict. However, it remains unclear if birds perceive common drone platforms as threatening. Based on field studies assessing behavioral and physiological responses, it is generally assumed that birds perceive less risk from drones than from predators. However, studies controlling for multiple confounding effects have not been conducted. Our goal was to establish the degree to which the perception of risk by birds would vary between common drone platforms relative to a predator model when flown at different approach types. We evaluated the behavioral responses of individual Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) to 3 drone platforms: a predator model, a fixed-wing resembling an airplane, and a multirotor, approaching either head-on or overhead. Blackbirds became alert earlier (by 13.7 s), alarm-called more frequently (by a factor of 12), returned to forage later (by a factor of 4.7), and increased vigilance (by a factor of 1.3) in response to the predator model compared with the multirotor. Blackbirds also perceived the fixed-wing as riskier than the multirotor, but less risky than the predator model. Overhead approaches mostly failed to elicit flight in blackbirds across all platform types, and no blackbirds took flight in response to the multirotor at either overhead or head-on approaches. Our findings demonstrate that birds perceived drones with predatory characteristics as riskier than common drone models (i.e. fixed-wing and multirotor platforms). We recommend that drones be modified with additional stimuli to increase perceived risk when used as frightening devices, but avoided if used for wildlife monitoring.
测试将无人机用作恐怖设备的一个关键假设:鸟类认为无人机有风险吗?
野生动物管理人员最近建议使用无人驾驶飞机系统或无人机作为非致命的恐吓工具,以阻止鸟类进入人类与野生动物发生冲突的地区。然而,目前尚不清楚鸟类是否将普通无人机平台视为威胁。根据实地研究评估行为和生理反应,一般认为鸟类对无人机的感知比天敌的风险要小。然而,控制多重混杂效应的研究尚未开展。我们的目标是确定在不同的接近方式下,鸟类对风险的感知在不同的无人机平台上相对于捕食者模型的差异程度。我们评估了个体红翼黑鹂(Agelaius phoeniceus)对3种无人机平台的行为反应:捕食者模型,类似飞机的固定翼和多旋翼,正面或头顶接近。与多旋翼机相比,黑鸟对捕食者模型的反应更早(提高13.7秒),更频繁地发出警报(提高12倍),更晚返回觅食(提高4.7倍),提高警惕性(提高1.3倍)。黑鸟还认为固定翼飞机比多旋翼飞机风险更大,但比捕食者模型风险更小。在所有平台类型中,头顶方法大多未能引起黑鸟的飞行,并且没有黑鸟在头顶或正面方法时对多旋翼做出飞行反应。我们的研究结果表明,鸟类认为具有捕食特征的无人机比普通无人机模型(即固定翼和多旋翼平台)风险更大。我们建议对无人机进行修改,增加额外的刺激,以增加用作恐怖装置时的感知风险,但避免用于野生动物监测。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
ACS Applied Bio Materials
ACS Applied Bio Materials Chemistry-Chemistry (all)
CiteScore
9.40
自引率
2.10%
发文量
464
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