Integrating UAS technology has opportunity to advance entanglement response strategy and efficiency, leading to a decrease in the whale’s stress level and increase the safety of the response team by minimizing overall response time. UAS provides faster data collection than traditional methods, leading to a quicker evaluation and entanglement strategy. Additionally, UAS may be able to locate an entangled whale faster than a boat.
UAS provides real time data of entanglement and high quality images of whale body condition. Used for spatial mapping of whale habitats and prey distribution, as well as, monitoring human activity around whales- it can be used as tool for long-term monitoring to reduce risks of entanglement.
Integrating UAS technology, licensed UAS pilots, and UAS best practices would increase success of protecting whales from entanglement.
