Best Practices for Ethical Drone Flights: An Analysis of Orphaned African Elephant Behavioral Responses to Drone Techniques

Abstract

African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) play an essential role as keystone species of the savanna. Their economic and cultural value as well as their significant impact on people’s livelihoods contributes to the urgent need for effective management policy and strategy. Unoccupied aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly referred to as drones, can play a critical role in the protection of elephants, although the effect to which they disturb wild elephant behavior is not extensively researched and never-before studied in orphan elephants. The present study analyzes the effect of various drone parameters on six orphan elephants at the Kafue Release Facility in Zambia, using self-directed behaviors (SDB) as an indicator for stress. The findings of this project suggest that drones are a viable means of ethically researching orphan elephants with implications for both short- and long-term conservation of orphan herds.