Drone footage is building up the missing data on dolphin populations that is crucial to ensuring their protection and long-term survival
Sophie Yeo
Fri 26 Jan 2018 13.19 GMTLast modified on Fri 26 Jan 2018 16.07 GMT
The drone is hovering above the Amazon river, but its battery is running low. André Coelho, the chief pilot, steers it back to safety with skills perfected by playing video games. Long hours practising on Need for Speed have become a surprising asset in the effort to conserve the dolphins that live in the river.
Marcelo Oliveira, a conservation specialist at WWF Brazil, stands on the bow of the boat with arms aloft. He plucks the white drone from the air, changes the battery, and swiftly sends it back into the sky.
Both species of Amazon river dolphin are categorised as ‘data deficient’ on the IUCN list making it harder to gain protection for them. Photograph: Alamy
Later, scientists will examine the video it has recorded for signs of the two species of dolphins that inhabit the river: the pink and bulbous boto, and the smaller, prettier tucuxi. Exactly how many live in the basin is a mystery. Some studieshave tentatively pointed to a decline of the pink dolphins in specific areas of the Amazon, but both species of dolphins are categorised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as “data deficient”.
Scientists at the Mamirauá Institute, based in the remote Amazonian town of Tefé, have teamed up with WWF Brazil to use drones to collect aerial footage of the river. These videos will help plug a data gap; conservationists have found it is difficult to argue in favour of a species you know nothing about.
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