Drone to track dolphins

New Zealand has almost no data about Ma¯ui’s dolphins despite there being just 63 left but a drone could turn that around.

A drone has been designed to find and follow the dolphins, in an effort to save them from extinction.

WWF New Zealand chief executive Livia Esterhazy said New Zealand scientists did not know much about the Ma¯ui’s dolphin and hoped to use the drone to close a knowledge gap. ‘‘We will be able to see where they get close to fishers, because we don’t know that, there is no data about how close they get.’’

But the new technology will come with a cost, and the WWF is asking New Zealanders to help raise the $350,000 needed to buy and operate the drone before the end of the year.

Between 1921 and 2015, entanglement in fishing gear accounted for up to 71.4 per cent of the 301 Hector’s and Ma¯ui’s dolphin deaths. ‘‘The only data we have on these dolphins is from a boat that goes out in February ... and that is the only surveillance they get every year, three weeks a year.’’

The information collected by the drone would be used to model where the dolphins go, Esterhazy said.

It could allow advice on which areas fishers should avoid during certain months.

The licensed and Civil Aviation Authority-approved drone will fly overhead with a 50x optical zoom, following dolphins for up to six hours.

The drone, which uses artificial intelligence, can distinguish Ma¯ui’s and Hector’s dolphins from other species with over 90 per cent accuracy.

MAUI63 – a small group of scientists, developers, and tech experts dedicated to protecting marine life – developed the drone and are being backed by the WWF.

Esterhazy said the drone would be released near the dolphins’ core territory near Raglan.