UAV Assisted Livestock Distribution Monitoring and Quantification: A Low-Cost and High-Precision Solution

Overview

Journal Animals (Basel)

Date 2023 Oct 14

PMID 37835675

Authors

Wenxiang Ji

Yifei Luo

Yafang Liao

Wenjun Wu

Xinyi Wei

Yudie Yang

Xiong Zhao He

Yutong Shen

Qingshan Ma

Shuhua Yi

Yi Sun

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Grazing management is one of the most widely practiced land uses globally. Quantifying the spatiotemporal distribution of livestock is critical for effective management of livestock-grassland grazing ecosystem. However, to date, there are few convincing solutions for livestock dynamic monitor and key parameters quantification under actual grazing situations. In this study, we proposed a pragmatic method for quantifying the grazing density (GD) and herding proximities (HP) based on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). We further tested its feasibility at three typical household pastures on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China. We found that: (1) yak herds grazing followed a rotational grazing pattern spontaneously within the pastures, (2) Dispersion Index of yak herds varied as an M-shaped curve within one day, and it was the lowest in July and August, and (3) the average distance between the yak herd and the campsites in the cold season was significantly shorter than that in the warm season. In this study, we developed a method to characterize the dynamic GD and HP of yak herds precisely and effectively. This method is ideal for studying animal behavior and determining the correlation between the distribution of pastoral livestock and resource usability, delivering critical information for the development of grassland ecosystem and the implementation of sustainable grassland management.

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