Authors - Sauvik Bose, Rina Bhattacharya, Rajeshwari Roy Abstract - Avian monitoring is a crucial component of biodiversity conservation, providing insights into population trends, habitat changes, and environmental stressors. The fast growth of mobile telephony has raised issues regarding its potential upon the avian population, their behaviors and breeding, predominantly due to electromagnetic radiation exposure. This study investigates the feasibility of using drones for avian monitoring near mobile towers in Arambagh Municipality (22.8838° N, 87.7819° E), Hooghly, West Bengal, India, which is a semi-urban landscape with rich avian diversity and has undergone a significant growth in mobile tower installation over the last few decades. Drones offer a non-invasive, scalable, and high-resolution method for ecological monitoring, surpassing traditional survey techniques in terms of not only efficiency and data accuracy but also consuming less time and effort. A drone (model: DJI MAVIC MINI) equipped with a high-resolution camera is deployed at selected base station sites within the study area. The study pattern included regulated flight patterns, periodic monitoring. Findings disclosed noticeable behavioral variations in birds near mobile base stations. The repulsion of smaller birds to the high EMR zone has been distinctly observed along with anomalies in roosting and breeding habits. A correlation was observed between radiation levels and avian health oddities, underscoring the need for further research. In the future, research ought to be performed on in-depth monitoring efforts in urban and semi-urban areas along the different geographical landscapes. Improving drone technology for ecological studies and exploring alternative communication infrastructures with reduced environmental impact is much needed.
