Help finding goniometers for sat tag recovery at sea
8 June 2023 7:47pm
Wildlife Monitoring Engineer
ICCB: Are you going? Are you presenting? Share your tech related activities!
30 March 2023 10:58am
26 May 2023 8:24pm
I will be there! No booth or anything but I will bring along some FieldKits (both terrestrial and underwater). I would love to meet up for a conservation tech happy hour. I think that is a great idea!
8 June 2023 4:32pm
Did we send you an invite to our workshop? I know you were on the list! We're organising a few networking things, including an event in partnership with EFN, Rufford Foundation, Whitley and CLP - keep night two free for this one!
Bat Identification Tools Comparison
16 May 2023 3:32pm
19 May 2023 12:15pm
Hi,
I suggest you giving a try to batdetect2. I didn't compare with BTO acoustic pipeline nor Kaleidoscope Pro but it gives really good results, it's fast, and it's opensource! The readme on Github is pretty clear so you can quickly get hands on it without knowing python language.
It's here:
GitHub - macaodha/batdetect2
Contribute to macaodha/batdetect2 development by creating an account on GitHub.
GitHub
Good luck!
JF Godeau
19 May 2023 12:38pm
The BTO Acoustic Pipeline is free to use up to 100 GB / year (about 50 nights of triggered bat recording). I am not un-biased to comment on performance because I built the classifiers that are used by the Pipeline, but I would strongly recommend that you take a dataset (with everything - not just pulling out the best bat recordings) that you have taken time to manually check, put it through each option that you are considering, and critically compare the performance.
In particular, the largest differences in performance between a good and more poorly performance classifier will be for some of the more cryptic species, so particularly focus on e.g. Myotis species, Plecotus species - if you are in an area where Brown and Grey long-eared bat are present. See how well the approach is able to identify multiple species if present in a wav file - is the classifier just identifying the species with the strongest calls, how well does it identify bat social calls / e.g. is it mis-identifying Pipistrellus social calls as Nyctalus species , how well does it identify weak bat calls in noisy recordings (e.g. does it miss Barbastelle calls in recordings with bush-crickets), does it mis-identify small mammals calls as bats e.g. Brown rat calls as Nyctalus species.
8 June 2023 1:38pm
Hi Stuart, Thanks for your response, and nice to e-meet someone behind the BTO acoustic pipeline! I have been testing out BTO quite a lot recently, and have started comparing results to Kaleidoscope this month, and have been manually checking classification results against raw audio. Will keep you updated with any findings if of interest.
Is there a minimum frequency recording that needs to be taken when uploading the BTO acoustic pipeline? I'm also interested in small mammals, and suspect that 96 KHz should be fine, rather than 192/384 when recording for bats.
Big Life Foundation: Improving Connectivity to Fight Wildlife Crime
Big Life Foundation
8 June 2023 10:00am
LABMaker
6 June 2023 3:31pm
8 June 2023 1:59am
GroupGets?
Accidentally gathering eDNA data from air monitoring filters
7 June 2023 8:13pm
This new Nature feature discusses how air pollution monitoring stations in the UK have accidentally become tools for gathering eDNA data from the air. Interesting to consider how this could change wildlife monitoring, especially in urban areas where this infrastructure is already set up!
What are the smallest changes you can make right now to make your work more sustainable?
7 June 2023 7:46pm
2023 Esri User Conference
7 June 2023 3:37pm
2023 Satellite for Biodiversity Award Winners
7 June 2023 2:22pm
River Monitoring Sensors
6 June 2023 1:06pm
WILDLABS Conservation Tech Intern (The Inventory)
6 June 2023 10:43am
UNEP Executive Director - Inger Andersen's take on why African nations have the power & tools to re-design a plastic pollution-free future
5 June 2023 1:28pm
Inger Andersen, the Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) explains how the innovative approaches towards curbing plastic pollution witnessed across African nations can help in pivoting to a plastics-free future through pioneering innovative manufacturing, packaging and design solutions.
This opinion first appeared in The Nation Africa
African nations have the power, tools to re-design a plastic pollution-free future
Across the world, cities, oceans and landscapes are clogged with plastic waste, creating risks for human health, threatening biodiversity and destabilizing the climate. This is why, on World Environment Day this year, the UN Environment Programme is asking everyone to do what they can to end plastic pollution.
Camera Trap Data Normalization Help
31 May 2023 2:45pm
2 June 2023 9:15pm
I have not looked into that. Thank you so much!
3 June 2023 2:11am
I would second this approach and possibly extend this to an abundance "N-mixture" model. Each 15 min image could be considered a 'visit' and covariates such as tide and weather used to describe detectability, while habitat covariates describe the 'haul out sites'.
There are several assumptions to meet about independence that should be considered and additional analyses that can account for spatial autocorrelation.
A good read is the documentation and vignettes for the R package 'Unmarked'. If you want a deeper understanding the two volumes of 'Applied Hierarchical Modeling in Ecology' by Kery and Royle will answer all your questions. There is also a google group for Unmarked with plenty of helpful contributors if you need help
5 June 2023 1:10pm
Thank you very much!
Register your #WorldEnvironmentDay Event or Activity and Share it with the World
5 June 2023 1:07pm
It's World Environment Day! This year the focus is on solutions to plastic pollution under the campaign #BeatPlasticPollution.
How are you getting involved to solve plastic pollution using conservation technology?
Camera Traps to monitor direct seeding reforestation
5 June 2023 10:17am
Imageomics Institute Image Datapalooza, August 2023
2 June 2023 11:44pm
Tales of career triumph
2 June 2023 7:38pm
Lion collars LoRaWan
24 May 2023 8:10am
25 May 2023 7:07am
Hi Stephan!
I have no experience with this company but have you considered Africa Wildlife Tracking:
Products - Africa Wildlife Tracking
All products are custom built in-house to your requirements and we offer a discount on new collar purchases if you return your old ones.
Africa Wildlife Tracking
Why can you not ship Vectronic Vertex to Kenya?
2 June 2023 1:59pm
Hi @BLCKiot
I can't offer much advice sorry, but it made me think of the Moovement ear tags:
GPS ear tags for cattle tracking | mOOvement
The mOOvement GPS Ear Tags allow you to to track and trace your cattle over long distances
This device also looks interesting (although it's on backorder), but could be cheap and small enough to incorporate into your own robust collar:
Anyhow, sorry I am not much help, but I'd be keen to hear how you get on.
All the best,
Rob
2 June 2023 7:21pm
Hi Stephan,
Good to know you have considered the OpenCollar trackers. It is true that currently we do not provide the CollarEdge for new deployments on lion. We have found that some top units of the CollarEdge can get damaged when lion are mating. The male lion bites in the neck of the female and thereby damages the top unit enclosure. However, the CollarEdge units that are on Lion, that have not been bitten perform really well. We are now in the process of iterating towards a new design that makes the CollarEdge more robust and at the same time we are working on adding VHF, Iridium and P2P LoRa. We aim to have the first units ready by the end of this year.
Follow progress via our website and wiki:
OpenCollar.io
Watching over wildlife together OpenCollar is a conservation collaboration to design, support and deploy open-source tracking collar hardware and software for environmental and wildlife monitoring projects
Smart Parks
and
OpenCollar Edge
This section describes the set-up, configuration and use of OpenCollar Edge devices.
Smart Parks Wiki
or send me an email.
ICCB early bird registration extended - join our WILDLABS workshop on movement ecology innovation!
9 May 2023 11:56pm
10 May 2023 12:01pm
Me!! Can't wait!
2 June 2023 3:43pm
ooooh! Not sure when I'll be getting to Kigali still, but definitely interested in at least the networking event! Might be a last minute addition to the workshop if I get down early enough.
ISO Speakers for Emerging Technologies class.
31 May 2023 4:29pm
31 May 2023 10:21pm
Definitely interested! I'm in the ecoacoustics/acoustic monitoring space, working at Rainforest Connection and Arbimon.
2 June 2023 2:08pm
Carly, that would be great! Thanks! I work with soundscapes and love the work of Rainforest Connection! I'll send you an email (@CUNY) to coordinate!
Frontier Labs BAR-LT Localization Firmware
19 May 2023 11:12pm
2 June 2023 1:46pm
Hi @tessa_rhinehart
Apologies, only just saw this message. Did you end up getting the firmware. I know the Frontier Lab guys and can possibly reach out to them if you are still having trouble. Let me know.
Cheers,
Rob
How are the Arts intersecting with Conservation Technology in a rapidly changing world?
2 June 2023 10:30am
Funding Opportunity for attending bird-focused events and trainings
2 June 2023 12:54am
Opportunity: Director of Digital, Data and Technology
2 June 2023 12:40am
Ashored Innovations: Hardware and Software for Sustainable Fishing
Ashored Innovations
1 June 2023 9:46pm
Current and future steps toward sustainability in conservation tech?
28 June 2022 6:24pm
29 June 2022 5:28am
At Ceres Tag, it is important that we are sustainable and have little to no impact on the environment.
- The battery life of the tag is 10 years and is recharged via solar panels. One battery for the life of the tag.
- No off-animal re-charging required
- No additional batteries
- The only commercial, direct to satellite, animal monitoring ear tag
- No onsite infrastructure to set up or take down
- No towers or other infrastructure such as receiving stations, radios or large power systems required
- Biosecurity and pandemic safe.
- Ceres Tag staff do not need to visit sites where the tags will be applied
- Our packaging is recyclable.
- Our e-commerce platform, allows for direct purchase from cerestag.com.
- Which means, direct to manufacture order with little or no paperwork for ordering.
By Ceres Tag designing the systems and tags in this manner, It will also allow for your carbon footprint to be minimal on the ground once you apply the tags. You can be anywhere in the world and view animals, without being in the same location
29 June 2022 8:42pm
Most of what I have done has been in a couple areas:
* Sensor re-use and repair, to the extent possible. This is an area where, especially with acoustic sensors, replaceable microphones have been a godsend that have really enabled us to extend the lifespan of older units
* Rechargeable batteries for some deployments. These don't travel well and don't have quite the life of alkalines, but for our sensors that are easily serviced (local to us) we use rechargeables to minimize waste. This was originally a long-term cost-cutting measure but has also let us minimize e-waste as a convenient side effect.
More generally, in my thinking about climate, it's worth it to emphasize that the carbon budget isn't zero, it's just finite. There are carbon-intensive activities that are sometimes worth it, it's mostly a question of how do we evaluate that. In the case of conservation tech work, if we can use our knowledge and skills to, for example, minimize bird or bat take from renewable energy in ways that improve generation uptime or reduce community backlash, that can more than offset (in conceptual, if not concrete terms--I haven't done the math on this yet) a few higher-emissions research or conservation activities. Of course, we should work to minimize our impact however we can, but our sector is such a very small portion of the global economy and so our contribution to the broader decarbonization push is likely a better use of our collective time and resources.
1 June 2023 5:33am
Nearly the year anniversary - Just 29 days away from when I first wrote this reply! We have made some major updates and also we are bringing forward new products
All of Ceres Tags products are still direct to satellite with no towers.
Update-
New Product!
We listened to our customers and brought out Ceres Ranch. The tag has all the same features as Ceres Trace yet, it is redeployable. It is as simple removing it from the current animals, and applying it to the next animal.
- Reusable where you can use in multiple projects. This means over 3 years, you could have over 1000 days of insights.
- Transfer ownership to the next owner
We would love to see researches getting out as much information and insights as possible. These tags are made for deployment and not to sit in a draw. If you do have tags and want to run through on how to transfer ownership to another researcher, please reach out.
Ceres Wild activity monitoring is an algorithm that has been developed by sampling the pattern of behaviour of cattle, this is then expressed on a scale of 1-63 with 1 meaning low activity and 63 meaning extremely high. With each data point you receive you will receive a value of 1 – 63 which represents the activity of that animal. Fast moving animals will have results that are expressed on the higher end of the scale while slower animals will sit on the lower end.
New Algorithm
Recently we have added the algorithm to Ceres Trace and Ceres Ranch tags. What algorithm you ask. Well one that Australia's CSIRO and NSW DPI has been working on for the past 15 years! The algorithm is called Pasture Feed Intake (hit the link to find out more)
- Following 15 years of research and development and thousands of hours of testings, Ceres Tag's Pasture Feed Intake (PFI) is available on Ceres Trace and Ceres Ranch tags now. Along with up to 4 standard data packets, Ceres Trace & Ceres Ranch tags will now receive and additional daily summary packet with Pasture Feed Intake information.
Wildlife and rural crime researches
With a lot of projects and researching now impacting wildlife, livestock and human interactions, I wanted to bring to your attention the recent program on rural crime - VIDEO: Satellite Stock Squad: A new weapon helping to combat livestock theft
Natural Capital GIS & Data Administrator
31 May 2023 3:55pm
How lights help keep lions and livestock alive in Kenya
31 May 2023 3:31pm
Richard Turere from Kitengela, invents flashing lights to mitigate human wildlife conflict. He came up with “Lion Lights,” a system that deters predators such as lions from attacking livestock using flashing lights. Operating predominantly on solar energy, with the ability to harness wind power during cloudy weather or low sunlight, Turere’s invention provides a sustainable eco-friendly approach to conservation.
Richard Turere: How my lights help keep lions and livestock alive
His invention has been adopted by families living near the park and beyond. He says that since the adoption of the Lion Lights, no lion has been killed around the Nairobi National Park
The Standard
Southeast Asia Counter Wildlife Crime Program Coordinator
Panthera
31 May 2023 1:00pm
30 March 2023 9:09pm
Marconi and I will be there from Rainforest Connection (RFCx)! RFCx has a booth, so catch us in the exhibitor hall (teaser-there will be giveaways...) - we'll be the ones playing weird and cool animal sounds!
We also submitted 2 abstracts, one on using ecoacoustic monitoring to assess how species respond to climate change in Puerto Rico, and another on using ecoacoustic monitoring to assess effectiveness of restoration sites with maintaining biodiversity levels.
Anddddd finally, we'll be giving a lunch-time workshop (just found our proposal was approved!) on using Arbimon to store, analyze, and interpret ecoacoustic data.
Let's have an ICCB conservation tech happy hour?? Super excited to participate in any/all conservation tech stuff happening!