Sea Dog Tourism in Scotland, AI Technology Helps Maintain its Sustainability

Seal tour in Scotland. (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - A natural attraction to see seals in their natural habitat is a unique attraction for visitors to Newburgh Beach, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

This coastal area is known as one of the best locations to observe hundreds to thousands of seals that come ashore, as well as an important space for marine animal research and conservation efforts.

To understand the impact of the presence of tourists on the seal population, artificial intelligence (AI) technology is now being used in research in the area. AI helps significantly reduce data analysis time in monitoring the seal population on the Newburgh beach.

Marine biologist and PhD student Claire Stainfield uses drone footage to monitor and count seals. This research aims to assess whether tourist activities affect the presence and behavior of seals, as reported by the BBC, Sunday.

Claire explained that manual processing of drone data usually takes hours. With the help of AI, the same process can now be completed in seconds. He hopes that this approach can also be applied to other ecological research.

The mouth of the Ythan River on Newburgh Beach has been designated as the official location for seals to land since 2017. The land area is protected and serves as a place for seals to rest and breed, so it is considered ideal for research purposes.

"If you talk to people about 50 years ago, the number of seals on this beach was only about 10 to 20, now, at its peak, the number is more than 3,000," he said.

As the population of seals increases, the number of tourists visiting the area also increases. Disturbing seals in any form is a violation of the law, so visitors are asked to stay on the south side of the beach.

The use of recreational drones is prohibited in the area. However, Claire obtained special permission for research purposes. He examined how humans and seals share space, as well as whether an increase in the number of tourists has an impact on the seal population.

"My research shows that if people stay on the south side of the beach, the disturbance to the seals is very small, compared to if people are walking on the north side," he explained.

Claire said the scope of the research was made very wide with regular data collection.

"What I did was collect data once a week for two years, including through Aberdeen's very harsh winter," he said.

"This gives a really good insight into seasonal changes in the way seals use the beach. My drone footage also records the GPS location of where they are." Claire added.

He explained that in the summer, seals are more often around the estuary because they are more active in finding food in the sea. This period coincides with the increasing number of beach visitors.

Conversely, in the winter when seals breed and molt, they tend to come ashore at the highest tide lines. The area is adjacent to a footpath and observation point built for tourists, although visitor numbers usually drop due to extreme weather.

In data processing, AI is a very helpful tool compared to manual counting methods.

"In one survey I can find about 1,000 seals, so I need something that can make data processing more efficient," he said.

Claire emphasized that the use of AI requires a fairly long initial process, including manually training the model to be able to accurately recognize seals.

Drone footage featuring around 2,500 seals previously took around three hours to analyse. Now, a trained AI model is able to complete the process in just seconds.

"This has a huge impact, saving a lot of time. The location of my research is very suitable for testing this AI model because the seals are clearly visible on the beach sand." he added.

In the future, Claire plans to test the technology in other locations and on different species.

"The use of drones in ecology is really growing rapidly, more and more people are using them. Drones provide accurate counts, less interference, so they can reach difficult areas without disturbing the seals too much," said Claire.

"Having a tool that can be used with drones will be very helpful for many industries that want to utilize drone technology." he added.