Sarah Shank

By Drew Foster

It’s late in the hotel room and every outlet is precious- lamps and clocks are abandoned for a plethora of plugs and cords. Everything is plugged in and charging: smartphone, tablet, laptop, power station, and batteries for the drone and sensor, check! Memory cards have plenty of space, data are backed up, and extra batteries and cables are in the bag, check! The weather looks good, not too windy, no rain, solar noon is around 1pm, and no restricted airspace in our flight areas, check!

While this may not sound like a field crew preparing for plant conservation, this is not an atypical evening for today’s field biologist. Modern devices, sensors, and techniques are quickly being adopted in applied science. In fact, rapid advances in technology, computing power, statistical modeling, and genetic analysis are ushering in a new era for conservation biology and ecology. I was lucky enough to spend time as a UW graduate student at the vanguard of plant conservation science. As part of a larger collaborative effort, Rare Care teamed up with the Remote Sensing and Geospatial Analysis Laboratory at UW to explore the use of unoccupied aerial systems (UAS), or drones, to further conservation efforts for the rare endemic plant, showy stickseed (Hackelia venusta). The goal of the project was to predict and identify suitable habitat for future recovery efforts.

My research focused on developing a model to predict suitable habitat where new showy stickseed populations might be established. Over the course of summer 2020, my lab partner and I acquired imagery of 365 acres of high-resolution multispectral imagery from UAS flights. Using these data, we identified approximately 33 acres of potential habitat from the resulting model analysis. This analysis narrows the search area for targeted field surveys, which will hopefully identify new locations for future showy stickseed outplanting sites.

I’m certain that UAS will become an essential tool in the toolkit for future field biologists; however, nothing replaces boots on the ground, nor the knowledge and relationship between people and the planet. New technology, sensors, and abstruse algorithms are simply tools to better understand the environment, and conservation will always need passionate advocates and stewards like the Rare Care program.