POSSIBILITIES OF APPLYING LIGHTWEIGHT UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES TO BIG GAME COUNTING

Different techniques and technologies are being used in wild animal research. Goals of such research and monitoring are various, most common are numbers per area and size of population for a researched species (Myslenkov i Miquelle, 2015). Development of new techniques and technologies that are used everyday in practial wild animal monitoring has made many tasks much easier and more precise, usage of technology often decreases the number of people needed to be involved in research and has made some until now unfeasable methods a reality. In conducted research we wanted to explore to what amount is it possible to apply a drone system equiped with thermal camera in assessing some population parameters for big game. Research was conducted in lowland teritorry of continental part of Republic of Croatia within hunting ground Opeka II. Wild boar has been chosen for the research as the most common species of big game in Republic of Croatia. Within two localities (I age grade of Oak forest) testing of two counting methods was conducted. First method was to try and count all neck within researched department. Given results show relatively high numbers of wild boar in average of 1,26 with sd=+/- 0,18 necks/ha within researched plane. Second utilized method was to count wild boar on in advance determined strips, whose share in total observed surface amounts to 10%. In this method infomation are of bigger variability and somewhat smaller number off wild boar within observed plane has been determined in amount of 0,61 neck/ha with very high sd=+/- 0,53. Researched confirmed the posibility of applying drone systems with thermal cameras. From two applied methods, first (absolute counting of all animals) is more suitable for smaller surfaces, while the method of appropriate strips is more suitable for larger surfaces with conscious risk of generating greater counting error.