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Latin America Community / Feed

This group aims to establish a regional hub in Latin America that provides a space for knowledge sharing and network-building among the growing number of people working in conservation technology in the region. 

discussion

Call for Collaboration: Share your voice at ICTC next week! 

Hello, fellow WILDLAB-ers! I'm Mandy, your current Human-Wildlife Coexistence Group Leader!  :)I am heading to the ICTC conference in Peru next week and while reviewing the...

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Hi Anna!

Is there anything that sparks your curiosity, which I can address for you? Take a look at the upcoming day 2 and day 3 sessions, and if you see anything that intrigues you, please let me know! I'll happily join the session that aligns, and share your thoughts! ☺️

Kind regards,

Mandy

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article

Traducción de WILDLABS

WILDLABS Team and 1 more
Nos complace anunciar nuestra nueva funcionalidad de traducción multilingüe en WILDLABS, comenzando con el español. Lee más sobre nuestras nuevas opciones de traducción de contenido y capacidades de traducción con IA.

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Three words: W O W ! This is the best innovation of the forum since it started! Finally, we can now easily share our knowledge in other languages. I am super glad that the WildLabs team got around to getting this done!

 A quick question: is it the caste that if I want an article or post to be findable in another language through the Search box, I should make a translated version?

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event

🌿 Encuentro Virtual Abril 2026 – Comunidad Latinoamericana Wildlabs

El lenguage de los anfibios: sonidos y vibraciones para su estudio y conservación

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El Dr. Rafael Márquez es Investigador Científico del Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (CSIC, Madrid) y fundador de la Fonoteca Zoológica, una de las principales colecciones de sonidos animales del mundo. Su trabajo integra el estudio de sonidos y vibraciones (biotremología) como herramientas clave para la investigación y conservación de anfibios.

Muchas gracias a los que pudieron asistir! Fuimos en total 35 personas que asistimos al evento virtual. Espero que podamos publicar el video proximamente.

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discussion

Camera trap or fixed-camera setups for insect guild monitoring at dung/carrion stations (Brazil)

Hi everyone,I’m a PhD student in tropical ecology based in Brazil, and I’m currently planning a field pilot that will use cameras to monitor invertebrate (insect) activity at...

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@Hubertszcz maybe you have advice: "Minimum resolution or lens characteristics that are sufficient for guild-level classification" 

 

i don't really know what guild-level means.

 

@domvonmatter - do you have a photo or drawing example of what a carrion station would look like on the forest floor? like will the camera be on the ground? Will it be above the ground but looking down?

how big of an area does it need to image?

 

what data do you need to get out? Like behavior that might need full motion video but maybe lower visual resolution? or just identification that might need lower temporal resolution, but higher visual resolution

There aren’t that many close-focus trail cameras.  The only current model I’m aware of is the GardePro E8PCF.  It is fixed focus at 200mm (no zoom).  I have not used this camera, but know others who have.  It has a timelapse feature. One thing to check before buying is that the timelapse feature works at night.  The GP website has a picture that suggests this true, but I know (for example) that in Browning camera timelapse does not work at night.

[There are other options.  You can attach lenses from reading glasses to a standard focus trail camera to convert it to close focus.  I have developed firmware hacks for older Browning SpecOps and ReconForce cameras that allows the timelapse to work around the clock.  Alas, these hacks don’t work on the latest HP5-Ultra models, and retrofitting optics on a pile of cameras is probably not how you want to spend your time. I'd try the GP]

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discussion

Counting aggregated animals in orthomosaics?

Hello everyone!Just wanted to share two papers that we published recently on approaches to deal with counting errors when surveying wildlife populations using drone-derived...

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Thank you for sharing. Would love to learn bit more about the data workflow. 

Last year I tired to using QGIS and few existing models to count the birds from orthomosaics of wadding birds in Cambodia but gave after dismal results. 

Great papers, thanks for sharing! 
We’ve been using drones to detect color-tagged crabs in saltmarshes, which allowed us to achieve a 60% recapture rate—something that was impossible with traditional trap or sampling methods.

By comparing orthomosaics captured at consecutive time intervals, we managed to re-detect individuals and quantify their movement for the first time. However, our detection process was done manually by eye.

I’m now looking into automated detection. Do you know of any existing tools that could be adapted for tracking color-coded targets across sequential maps, or would you recommend developing an ad hoc solution?

Best,
Nahuel

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discussion

New in bioacustics, need some advice

Hello everyone,I am currently working with bird banding data in Ecuador as part of a long-term monitoring program that has been running for over 20 years. Over the past two years...

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discussion

Exploring Ocean Biodiversity: A Multimodal Data Project Focused on the Humboldt Current

🌊 Ongoing Project: Identifying Marine Biodiversity Hotspots Using Multimodal DataHello everyone! 👋We’re currently developing a capstone project as part of the...

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Hello Jaqueline!!

 

I would like to recommend reaching out to Dr. Santiago Martinez Balvanera, a Mexican researcher currently based at University College London (UCL), who works on advancing machine learning techniques for acoustic biodiversity monitoring.

You can find more information about his background and work here:  

 

Hi Jaqueline, 

Great to learn about this project development, and based in Peru. Our research group is based in Peru, and we integrate diverse technologies to monitor and assess biodiversity, advancing marine sciences and conservation. Our main ongoing and long-term project is on the central coast of Peru (www.bmap.pe). I would be interested in learning more and discussing potential collaboration opportunities. 

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discussion

🐸 WILDLABS Awards 2025: Open-Source Solutions for Amphibian Monitoring: Adapting Autonomous Recording Devices (ARDs) and AI-Based Detection in Patagonia

We’re excited to launch our WILDLABS-funded project to adapt open-source recording hardware and AI tools to help monitor amphibians, with an initial focus on one of South America'...

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Love this team <3
We would love to connect with teams also working on the whole AI pipeline- pretraining, finetuning and deployment! Training of the models is in progress, and we know lots can be learned from your experiences!

Also, we are approaching the UI design and development from the software-on-demand philosophy. Why depend on third-party software, having to learn, adapt and comply to their UX and ecosystem? Thanks to agentic AI in our IDEs we can quickly and reliably iterate towards tools designed to satisfy our own specific needs and practices, putting the researcher first. 

Your ideas, thoughts or critiques are very much welcome!

Kudos for such an innovative approach—integrating additional sensors with acoustic recorders is a brilliant step forward! I'm especially interested in how you tackle energy autonomy, which I personally see as the main limitation of Audiomoths  

Looking forward to seeing how your system evolves!

🌿 Project Update — November 2025
Sharing our experience at the Symposium on Physics Applied to Ecology and Conservation (Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil).

We’d like to thank Carlos Araujo for kindly inviting us to take part in the Symposium on Physics Applied to Ecology and Conservation, held on November 6–7, 2025, at the PTI Campus – Universidade Federal da Integração Latino-Americana (UNILA) in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil.

The event aimed to build bridges between researchers from different disciplines and countries, exploring how physics can support acoustic monitoring, ecological data collection, and biodiversity conservation.

🎙️ We joined Roundtable 3 — Hardware, Sensors, and Audio Recording, where we discussed:

Open-source autonomous recorders for biodiversity monitoring.

Energy-efficient design and sensor integration.

Alternative battery types and power solutions (particularly relevant to our developments)


🎥 Watch the roundtable recording here.


It was also a great opportunity to share our experience and highlight the WildLabs community, connecting with colleagues working at the intersection of physics, ecology, and technology.


 

 

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discussion

Seeking Connections with Chile’s Wildlife Conservation

Hi There, I’m looking to connect with people working in wildlife conservation within Chile’s national parks and protected areas (private or state).I’m interested in...

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Hi Esteban,

Thank you for reaching out and for sharing more about your work. I’m sorry for the delayed response; the past month has been quite full with design/creative work that I needed to focus on to sustain my explorations and self-funded conservation efforts.

Your work in southern Chile and the Snapshot Chile project sound very relevant, especially in remote areas where resources are limited.

It would be great to connect and have a conversation about your work and experiences.

Please feel free to reach me by email at [email protected] so we can arrange a chat if you like.

Take care, 
Luciano

 

Hello Luciano, my name is Jorge Valenzuela. I'm a veterinarian and I work for the National Forestry Corporation, which manages the national parks in northern Chile. I'm in charge of the conservation section in Tarapacá, northern Chile. I'm interested in using new technologies for biodiversity monitoring. We use SMART for patrols, camera traps, drones, and other tools. Best regards, and let's stay in touch.

Hi Jorge,

Thank you for your message! it would be great to know more about what are the challenges that you and your team face in monitoring these remote landscapes. 

Please feel free to reach me by email at [email protected] so we can arrange a chat if you like. Or we continue here, whatever is best for you.

Take care, 
Luciano

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article

WILDLABS at Living Data 2025

Vanesa Reyes and 2 more
At Living Data 2025 in Bogotá, WILDLABS joined over a thousand global participants to explore how biodiversity data can drive conservation impact. From launching the new Move BON network to showcasing innovations in...

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discussion

Seeking Circular Initiatives in South America

Hi all,I am on the hunt for circular initiatives in South America (any country). I’m also happy to know about Central America, but main focus is SA for now. I’m interested in...

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Hi Caitlyn; my colleague Karina Fretes ([email protected]) is the regional manager of circular economy projects at our institution, Fundación Moisés Bertoni (www.mbertoni.org.py) , based in Paraguay. Her email is [email protected]
. You can write to her if you are interested in learning about that type of projects. Best regards.

Myriam Velázquez

Fundación Moisés Bertoni 

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