Why drones are being deployed over Lake Simcoe

Boats on Lake Simcoe (Ducks Unlimited Canada)

People who have been enjoying Lake Simcoe this summer may have heard an unusual buzzing sound - as drones can be seen flying in the sky.

Matt Bolding, head of conservation programs at Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) said it’s part of a new program, using a tool called BirdsEye.

“We began to integrate drones into the program because drones have good freedom of movement and we can cover a lot of area pretty quickly,” said Bolding.

“You just fly a drone with the camera pointing straight down, and you can get great photos of the area you’re trying to survey,” he told CTV News.

While in the air, the drones take hundreds of pictures but until now there has been no way to identify species in the water.

DUC, along with partners have developed a software program on a drone that is taught what to look for.

While scanning through pictures, the software can identify invasive species and provide GPS coordinates on the lake.

“It cuts down on the hours and hours of field time which saves us a bunch of money,” said Bolding, adding “which we can then use to actually like remove these invasive plants that are causing of a negative impact to the environment and human use of these systems.”

One of the biggest issues are water soldiers - which can grow quickly and dominate a habitat.

“Native wildlife have a real struggle with it,” Bolding explained.

“Some places like Cooks Bay are popular area to lots of people who boat and stuff like that and you’re just trying to boat through a big pile of weeds and it just inhibits recreational activity,” said Bolding.

“It’s sharp,” he warned.

The plant can not only be a physical risk to people swimming but an eye sore as well.

Residents are discouraged from removing it themselves and instead asked to let the experts handle it.

“It spreads by sort of fragments, so you must be pretty careful when you remove it,” said Bolding.

“If it’s a really large population, then you have to look at sort of more high impact management methods like herbicide application, which we generally try to avoid,” he said.

Herbicide applications are a last resort, as Bolding said they can be expensive and have a negative affect om native vegetation.

Testing remains ongoing and DUC hopes to continue to use drones on Lake Simcoe along with the rest of the work on the lake moving forward.