Research Progress in Area 1 方向 ( 一 ) 課題進展 77 Abstract The residential cetaceans of Hong Kong waters, Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins and IndoPacific finless porpoises, are good sentinels for ocean and human health. Cumulative natural and anthropogenic stressors resulted in illness, injury or death of both species. There is an urge to understand the relationship between anthropogenic disturbances and marine ecosystem health. To this goal, Prof. Kot proposes 1) to develop a new set of biological health data collection protocols and techniques in freeranging smaller-bodied odontocetes using unmanned aerial vehicle (UVA) technology; 2) to evaluate the accuracy and reliability of UAV-based biological health data collection in comparison to that of the current postmortem examination practice for biological health and pathological investigation; 3) to document the morphometric measurements using UAV photogrammetry to estimate potential changes in overall nutrition condition; and 4) to characterize microbiomes associated with UAV collected samples of blow to assess commonalities and difference between the blow microbiomes of individual cetaceans and identify the presence of potential pathogens. With this new health data collection and validation protocols, a better understanding of ocean and human health towards the “one-ocean-one health” ideal is anticipated to be accomplished. Research Activities and Progress • Collected data through 19 vessel surveys with 1872 km of survey effort in Hong Kong waters. • Collected over 53,000 images in 19 surveys. • Recorded 207 minutes of aerial footage using UAV in 8 surveys. Key Findings • Cetacean behaviours such as socializing, feeding and epimeletic behaviour were captured by UAV. Photogrammetric measurements of cetacean body dimensions were also estimated. • 140 individual dolphins were identified by the shape of their dorsal fins, with at least 7 individual dolphins repeatedly sighted in more than one trip. Research Output Publication 0 Trained personnel 2 Applicability of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Technology for Collecting Biological Health Data of Local Cetaceans in Hong Kong waters Prof. Brian Chin Wing Kot City University of Hong Kong Fig 1. The overhead perspective of surfacing dolphins taken from a perpendicular angle to the sea allowed photogrammetric measurement of its body dimensions including total length and body width at various anatomical regions
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