Understanding fishing participation assists sustainable fisheries management. Relative to commercial fisheries, however, accurate quantitative data on recreational fishing is often more challenging to collect. The quality and robustness of recreational fishing surveys to assess fisher numbers may be improved with cost‐effective remote sensing platforms, such as aerial drones. Here, the precision and cost‐effectiveness of drone‐based surveys were compared with more traditional vessel‐based surveys of recreational fishing participation at four locations on the east coast of Australia. Although vessel‐based surveys had greater initial costs, this technique observed more fishers, took less time to complete and did not require post‐processing of video footage. In comparison, the drone‐based video surveys provided greater precision and a permanent record of fishing activity. Currently, drone‐based techniques do not provide a substantial improvement to traditional vessel‐based counts of fishers. The complimentary use of drones appears to be an appropriate application of this technology for supporting fisheries management.

中文翻译：

---

评估小型空中无人机的可行性以量化休闲渔民

了解捕鱼参与有助于可持续的渔业管理。但是，相对于商业渔业，有关休闲捕鱼的准确定量数据通常更具挑战性。可以通过具有成本效益的遥感平台（例如空中无人机）来提高休闲捕鱼调查以评估渔民数量的质量和健壮性。在这里，将基于无人机的调查的准确性和成本效益与在澳大利亚东海岸的四个地点进行的基于传统的基于船的休闲捕鱼参与的调查进行了比较。尽管基于船只的调查具有较高的初始成本，但该技术观察到更多的渔民，花费的时间更少，并且不需要对视频镜头进行后期处理。相比下，基于无人机的视频调查提供了更高的精确度并永久记录了捕鱼活动。当前，基于无人机的技术并未对基于船只的传统渔民数量提供实质性的改进。无人机的免费使用似乎是这项技术在支持渔业管理方面的适当应用。