Amazon wants to use them to deliver you packages, but for a wildlife conservation organization, drones (also called Unmanned Aerial Vehicle  - UAVs) are a great new tool for getting a better picture of some pretty remote places.

In the past, if we wanted to get a sense of the habitat found over a large area, we might have used satellite imagery.  We still do use such imagery, but satellites have some limitations.  For example, a satellite may only pass over an area once every two weeks. 

UAVs offers us the ability to zoom in at a much lower cost than helicopter surveys and can provide richer detail on habitat conditions or wildlife presence than satellites. Take a look at how WCS Canada is using this cutting edge technology in an illustrated blog put together by our Geomatics Specialist Tyler de Jong: https://arcg.is/qCDj1