{"id":751811,"date":"2026-06-22T00:29:28","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T00:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/751811\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T00:29:28","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T00:29:28","slug":"queensland-researchers-use-drones-and-ai-to-capture-bird-data-critical-to-conservation-efforts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/751811\/","title":{"rendered":"Queensland researchers use drones and AI to capture bird data critical to conservation efforts"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a cool morning along the esplanade of the sleepy bayside town of Toorbul, bird songs and squabbles fill the air.<\/p>\n

Suddenly a more persistent sound can be heard amid the morning chorus at the shorebird sanctuary, about 60 kilometres north of Brisbane.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Researchers worked out the best altitude and distance to fly the drones to ensure the birds would not be disturbed. (ABC Sunshine Coast: Jessica Ross)<\/p>\n

It is the whirr of a drone being launched by University of Queensland (UQ) researcher Joshua Wilson.<\/p>\n

He knows exactly the right altitude and distance to operate without disturbing the shorebirds, which include critically endangered far eastern curlews<\/a> enjoying a much-needed rest after flying 13,000 kilometres from Siberia.<\/p>\n

“I used to work as an engineer designing drones, but I started to think more about what I valued and what I wanted to contribute my time to,” Dr Wilson said.<\/p>\n

“For me, the biodiversity crisis is the most important thing.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Far eastern curlews are now on the critically endangered list.\u00a0\u00a0 (Supplied: BirdLife Australia)<\/p>\n

As part of his PhD, Dr Wilson spent the past four years investigating the use of drones to survey bird populations, with artificial intelligence also helping cut out the legwork.<\/p>\n

“Manually counting birds in drone imagery is extremely time-consuming,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We found that using the computer vision tool that we developed, we could speed up the process by about 85 times.”\"AI\"A A drone image of Australian shorebirds. \/ AI rapidly identifies birds in the picture.<\/p>\n

Dr Wilson said the technology meant experts could concentrate on conservation efforts.<\/p>\n

“Rather than them spending time labelling birds in drone imagery or navigating really difficult-to-access sites, it frees up these experts so they can just leave a computer running overnight and spend their time on the more high-value work,” the researcher said.<\/p>\n

Global problem needs global input<\/p>\n

According to the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, more than 200 Australian bird species and subspecies are listed as threatened with extinction under national environmental law, up from 134 in the mid-1990s.<\/p>\n

BirdLife International estimates more than half of all bird species globally are in decline.<\/p>\n

“This started out as a local project here in Moreton Bay and it’s supported by the Queensland Wader Study Group (QWSG) and The Moreton Bay Foundation,” Dr Wilson said.<\/p>\n

“But I quickly realised that if we want to develop tools that can be used globally, we need to train them on images that are from a global context.”\"The\"A A drone image supplied from Italy of Mediterranean gulls. \/ The birds are identified and counted.<\/p>\n

He sent out emails around the world and 33 researchers from 11 countries responded, contributing to a dataset that now contains almost 50,000 birds from more than 100 species.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got images of penguins from Antarctica, cormorants nesting in the treetops in Africa. We’ve got white storks on top of roofs of houses in Poland,” Dr Wilson said.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Drone surveys are particularly suited to waterbirds and shorebirds, with no tree canopy to obscure the aerial view. (ABC Sunshine Coast: Jessica Ross)<\/p>\n

Richard Fuller from UQ’s School of the Environment said hard-to-reach locations often prevented effective population monitoring.<\/p>\n

“Effective conservation depends on fast and scalable monitoring methods,” Professor Fuller said.<\/p>\n

“This study lays the foundation for using AI to efficiently process drone bird survey imagery across vast and difficult landscapes.”<\/p>\n

The dataset and AI model used are now freely available, with the hope researchers will continue to contribute images.<\/p>\n

Loading…Why count the numbers?<\/p>\n

BirdLife Australia president Hugh Possingham said a global living planet index showed about a 2 per cent decline in birds all around the world, and Australia was “no better”.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Hugh Possingham says declining bird numbers should be a concern for Australians. (ABC News: Paul Adams)<\/p>\n

“Sadly, we have lost around about 25 different bird species since the arrival of Europeans to Australia,” Professor Possingham said.<\/p>\n

“Even common birds like the willy wagtail that many people used to see in their garden, they’re disappearing, their abundance is going down 2 or 3 per cent a year.”<\/p>\n

Queensland’s former chief scientist said habitat destruction, invasive species like cats and foxes and climate change had all played a part.<\/p>\n

“Recognising that, yes, waterbirds, shorebirds, they are in serious decline across Australia and secondly, testing interventions is absolutely critical and it requires extremely accurate data,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We have a gigantic continent the size of the United States, but we have 20 times fewer people and 20 times fewer scientists.<\/p>\n

“We really are at the forefront with tools like Josh has developed so that we can count our wildlife at scale.”<\/p>\n

\"The\"An An image supplied of chinstrap penguins in Antarctica. \/ The AI model spots the different bird species.<\/p>\n

The Queensland Wader Study Group has been monitoring shorebird population numbers for almost 35 years.<\/p>\n

QWSG chairperson David Edwards said drones had a use, but with a “caveat” that they should only be flown in a way that does not disturb certain species that are easily spooked.<\/p>\n

\"David<\/p>\n

David Edwards says the QWSG is pleased to assist with the research project. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

“We deal with governments and governments like to have hard facts,” Mr Edwards said.<\/p>\n

“If you don’t have those facts as a long-term dataset you’re not going to be able to rest your case for protection and further conservation of not only the birds but their habitat.”<\/p>\n

He said it was “depressing” for bird watchers to notice decreases “even in our own back garden”.<\/p>\n

“It always sounds a bit trite but you want your grandchildren to be able to see what you’ve seen,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a cool morning along the esplanade of the sleepy bayside town of Toorbul, bird songs and squabbles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":751812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,360779,17702,2929,8426,20558,75,44,360780,101616],"class_list":["post-751811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bird-extinction","tag-birds","tag-conservation","tag-endangered","tag-endangered-species","tag-environment","tag-news","tag-shorebirds","tag-threatened"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=751811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}