Maktlee Drone Services drone operators show off the technology at Port Alberni’s Best Western Plus Barclay Hotel parking lot during the Indigenous Forestry Conference on Sept. 11.
“You have to learn a lot of the laws,” said Watts. “For instance, in Canada drones are only allowed to fly up to 122-metres in height. If you fly beyond that you have to have SFOC .” Ben Durkan is a Tseshaht forester and manager at Maktlee Drone Services. He hopes more Nuu-chah-nulth members will consider a career in drone technology.
He went on to explain that drones are currently used on the backend of fires to detect hot spots once the fire is out, but he thinks there could be an opportunity to use heat sensing drones to find fires before they get out. Another area Maktlee wants to explore is tree planting. Durkan says drones can help with that sort of labour-intensive activity.
In a study from 2015, the Minnesota researchers fitted free-roaming American black bears with satellite GPS collars and cardiac bio-loggers to assess effects of unmanned aerial vehicles flights on movements and heart rate responses of the bears.