Case Study — Conservation, Ecuador

Drones for
Species
Conservation

Mapping critical habitat for the
critically endangered spider monkey.

1,000 Hectares Surveyed Four 250-ha blocks + one 150-ha block, fully mapped
2 Days of Flight Complete dataset collected in a narrow dry-season window
8 cm GSD High-resolution orthomosaic across the full survey area
Canon SX 260HS Payload High-resolution imagery and topographical data collection
<250 Monkeys Remain Brown-headed spider monkey — critically endangered
Orthomosaic map of spider monkey habitat in northwest Ecuador, created using Event 38 E384 drone data
Northwest Ecuador
Event 38 E384
Conservation Research
The Mission
Protecting a Species
From Above
Background Why the Brown-Headed Spider Monkey Matters

A conservation group in Ecuador was searching for an efficient way to analyze large areas of land and identify where the brown-headed spider monkey could live. The stakes couldn't be higher: fewer than 250 of these animals are estimated to remain in the wild, and most live in Ecuador.

Despite their small numbers, spider monkeys play an outsized role in their ecosystem. They eat mostly ripe fruits, which means they cover enormous ground — anywhere from 500 meters to five kilometers in a single day. That mobility makes them critical seed dispersers for many native tree species. Protecting their habitat isn't just about saving one animal; it's about preserving the entire forest ecosystem that depends on them.

The Challenge A Narrow Window and a Vast Landscape

The team needed detailed topographical data from northwest Ecuador — but the environment made traditional surveying nearly impossible. Two factors made the objective particularly demanding:

1

Extreme rainfall. This region receives over 6,000 millimeters — nearly 20 feet — of rain each year. The dry season is extremely short: July and August are the only two months when a drone could realistically fly over this area.

2

A large home range. Spider monkeys roam 90 to 250 hectares — a much larger area than most monitored species. That scale makes them harder to track and requires surveying vast stretches of terrain to identify viable habitat.

Orthomosaic results map from E384 drone survey of spider monkey habitat in Ecuador

Orthomosaic output from the E384 survey — 1,000 hectares of spider monkey habitat mapped at 8 cm GSD using Pix4D.

Mission Overview
Aircraft Event 38 E384
Payload Canon SX 260HS
Customer Conservation Group
Location Northwest Ecuador
Area Surveyed 1,000 Hectares
Resolution (GSD) 8 Centimeters
Application Habitat Mapping
The Solution
E384 Covers 1,000 Hectares in Two Days

With a lot of land to survey and very little time to do it, the team purchased an Event 38 E384 drone outfitted with a Canon SX 260HS camera for high-resolution imagery and topography capture. The E384 was programmed to cover four 250-hectare blocks and one 150-hectare block per flight. Over two days, it collected massive amounts of imagery data — enough to generate a detailed orthomosaic of the entire 1,000-hectare survey area with a ground sample distance (GSD) of just eight centimeters.

1,000 Hectares Mapped
8 cm GSD Resolution
2 Days of Flight
5 Flight Blocks
Why It Worked
Three Advantages the E384 Delivered
Advantage 01
Visibility No Foot Survey Could Match

The topographical model created from E384 data gave researchers clear visibility into specific areas that would have been difficult or even impossible to reach on foot — delivering a more accurate and complete picture of the spider monkeys' potential habitat than any traditional method could provide.

Advantage 02
Speed That Fit the Dry-Season Window

A traditional ground survey would have taken far longer to collect equivalent data. With only July and August available for flight operations, speed was everything. The E384 mapped the entire 1,000-hectare study area in just two days — a level of efficiency that made the mission possible.

Advantage 03
Affordable Data, More Money for Conservation

The E384 is a cost-effective platform. By spending less on data collection, the conservation team was able to redirect more of their budget toward direct conservation efforts — the work that actually protects the species. Lower operational costs mean more resources where they matter most.

See It in Action
The Mission
On Video

Watch how the E384 mapped 1,000 hectares of critical spider monkey habitat in northwest Ecuador — data that couldn't have been collected any other way.

Event 38 E384
Northwest Ecuador
Habitat Mapping
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