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Header image: Laura Kloepper, Ph.D.

discussion

Troubleshooting: Trophy Cam Agressor

I work in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. I have a Trophy Cam Agressor from 2015 (model 119776). It started to record date time wrongly with delays of different magnitude. I...

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Ok no problem Peter. My colleague Neil Jordan works in Botswana, as does Lucy Ransome (who is heading there in April). Otherwise, do you have a contact I can send it to so they can get it to you?

Cheers and thanks again for the interest. 

Rob

Neil was who I was thinking of. I'm not sure when he plans to next be here.

Peter

Hi Peter, Ok cool, I'll ask him. I know Lucy is heading back over in a couple of months for sure though, so happy to give it to her for you.

Cheers,

Rob

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article

On the horizon: Looking ahead for global conservation

Sarah Pocock
Every year for the last decade, an expert team of horizon scanners, science communicators and researchers has identified the top emerging issues in global conservation. Horizon scanning is a tool to highlight arising –...

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discussion

Drone based orangutan tracking

Hi Folks, Just found out about this community. Sharing some tracking work I have been doing on the side over the past two years. Working with Orangutans in Borneo https://...

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Hi Dirk, 

Your case study is an interesting read, thanks for sharing. In terms of people exploring similar things, there are a few members who you could connect with about different elements of the project. Your project has a few different elements - are there specific things you're interested in hearing how others are handling?

As a start: 

  • @Sol+Milne is working with Drones and Orangutans, but using them to map nests rather than track individual animals. Case study here, discussion about the project here
  • There's a discussion in this group about aerial platforms for wildlife tracking that might be relevant, which @Albin , @YvanSG , @Rob+Appleby and @emjay are involved in. In a spinoff thread, @emjay has shared the details of WildFInd, a package that produces geo-referenced heatmaps for VHF collared animals - sounds like this could be relevant for your project as you're using VHF implants as well, right? He's invited feedback to help move that project forward, so might be worth checking it out to see if it's relevant and there is overlap between your work. 
  • @Tomswinfield has been working with drones in Indonesia for the past few years to map forest recovery efforts (case study here - it's a bit dated but gives you an idea what he's exploring). 
  • @meganossmann has been testing out FLIR’s new Duo Pro R thermal camera as a detection tool for loggerhead sea turtle nests (case study here, discussion here). 

This is by no means an exhaustive list of members working in this space, but it's a enough to point you in the direction of some of the recent work being shared here that seems to overlap with what you're working on. 

If you haven't already, I'd also recommend having a poke around our drones group as well as there might be some relevant discussions/projects that could be of interest. 

Steph 

Hi Dirk,

Sounds like an absolutely fascinating project and well done on all the progress you've made! If you aren't already aware of it, I think the Sensorgnome system people and you have some definite things to chat about. Sensorgnomes use Pis/Beaglebones and RTL-SDRs (or FUNcubes) and custom written software to automatically tracking beacons. The system is primarily used for ground stations, and there's a lot of emphasis on the small Lotek coded VHF tags, but conventional tags also work and there's a lot of interest in the community about drone tracking as you'd expect. Anyway, great stuff and welcome to WILDLABS!

Cheers,

Rob

Thanks all, very useful links, some of them, like the orangutan nest mapping, wildfind, & sensorgnomes, I knew about, some not. Will have a poke :)

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discussion

Advice for pilot regen project (New Forest, UK)

I would be very grateful for any advice. We are working on the conversion of a 3 x acre "brownfield" site in the New Forest, Hampshire, UK.  The site is...

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I know this might be controversial but why do anything - why not let nature do it's thing and just observe.  That way it would establish a baseline and help to formulate acellerator interventions for other sites.   Although Knepp has started from a different base it's an interesting story in low intervention rewilding https://knepp.co.uk/

Thanks David,

I understand your point, but we are now collaborating with University research that will be examining (amongst other things) the microbial level, especially in poor and polluted environments. The request still stands, and any relevant collaboration would be welcomed.

All the best.

 

 

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article

Tiny birds, tiny tech

In this case study, author Kat Kerlin takes us through a recently published study led by the University of California, Davis on urban hummingbirds. The researchers use passive integrated transponder, or PIT tags, to ...

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discussion

Sumatran Forest Type Maps and Data

Anyone know of any good databases or sites to find forest cover maps for Indonesia? I know that is highly specific but, I am looking for maps that show forest type for a...

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funding

The Ecosulis Rewilding Tech Challenge

Ecosulis
With the aim of advancing rewildling-related technology in the UK and introducing new talent and ideas into the field of rewildling, Ecosulis is thrilled to announce the launch of their first ever Rewilding Tech...

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article

HWC Tech Challenge Update: Testing our prototype thermal cameras in the Arctic

Arribada Initative
Arribada just returned from their first thermal camera field trials in Greenland, where they tested the image quality and detection abilities of their chosen thermal sensors in an arctic climate, assessed their...

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Hi @adanger24 and @Alasdair !Do you have any news on progress with this project you can share?Cheers, Lars 
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discussion

Conservation X Labs is hiring!

We are hiring engineers, marketing specialists, and an operations director! For those who are passionate about technology and its potential to improve natural resource management...

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discussion

Wild pigs crop damage assessment and movement using GIS and drones

I am working for crop protection from wildlife in Bhutan. Wild pigs are a national issue damaging crops. I am planning to assess crop damages caused by wild pigs and even track...

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Dear Sdorji,

Thanks for sharing! Are you specifically looking for monitoring methods? In that case, you could probably also find relevant information outside of the HWC group, perhaps in groups focussing on camera trapping, the use of drones etc on the other WILDLABS pages. Do you know about the Bhutanese national HWC strategy? Does this also focus on wild boars? Or is your initiative not connected to that?

Best regards,

Femke

Dear Femke,

I am actually looking for studying the crop damages using drones and also tracking the movements, may be using GPS collars. But I do not actually know about these tools and have not used. So just thought if I can get methods and procedures. It is great that you already know about our national strategy. Yes, I am the core member of Bhutanese national HWC strategy and we have recently completed drafting. I have worked on wild pigs chapter and one strategy there is crop damage assessments and movements study. We are also proposing crop insurance but without a concrete data, there is nothing we can do about crop insurance. So I am thinking to collect basic information such as crop damages and movements of wild pigs.

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discussion

Locally fabricated electric/solar fencing widely spreading in Bhutan

Human-wildllife conflict in the form of livestock and crop losses are a huge problem in Bhutan. Of late, we have developed a locally fabricated electric/solar fencing (except the...

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Dear Sdorji,

Thanks for sharing and your request for suppport from this group! I was thinking that perhaps @Mohan+Raj could share with you some insights from India? He has also developed fences and is involved in the technologies to improve monitoring and maintanance.

Best regards,
Femke

Dear Femke,

Thank you for your email. I hope I can hear from Mohan Raj. Electric fencing is one area where it can play very important role in human wildlife conflict management. In Bhutan, there are now about 3636 km and we are already experiencing some issues such as sustainability, wooden poles, nelgect during off-season, etc. I hope we can learn from each other and see areas for collaboration.

Thanks.

Sangay

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discussion

Recording problems with Audiomoths

Hi guys I'm currently in Mauritius where I've done acoustic monitoring of Mormopterus acetabulosus for the last couple of months, trying to figure out what habitats it...

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Hi David

Thank you for your answer. I'm using 2000mAh Fujitsu R06 batteries. When configuring the AudioMoths, daily energy consumption is said to be 72mAh. The batteries should last for at least 20 days. I've never had them deployed for more than seven days straight (and they even did the zero lenght files at deployment for only three days). Maybe the energy consumption calculator in the configuration program is faulty?

Where can I find the firmware?

Alex

Information and links to the new firmware and the app is here https://www.openacousticdevices.info/single-post/2018/12/12/Version-120---New-Firmware-and-Config-App-Now-Available.   Note: there is a possiblilty of the update failing and the recovery proceedure is here https://www.openacousticdevices.info/support/device-support/device-bricked-during-firmware-update.

With batteries it is also to do with voltage decay as well as power. There was a discussion Nov 2017 about voltage limits and it was said that SD cards get a bit twitchy at less than 3.3v but the rest will still be operating at around 3v - I can't find any data on R06 however in general voltage drop is influenced by temperature, dicharge rate, age/no of recharges etc etc - your are right it may not the batteries but there is a possibility it might hence my suggestion.

I'd suggest also posting on the AudioMoth support forum, to see if anyone else has seen this issue and has a fix.

Cheers

David B

Forgot to say - if you are having trouble reformatting SDcards on Windows- the project suggests this programme http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm.

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discussion

News from around the world

In positive news from China, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration (NFGA) has teamed up with Tencent to combat IWT online, by introducing crime reporting tools...

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discussion

3D printed audiomoth cases

Hi, I've made an initial attemp to design a 3D printed case for an audiomoth (with 3 x AAA battery pack) and have made it available on the thingiverse (https://www....

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discussion

Upcoming events

What events will you be attending in 2019 related to wildlife cybercrime?  What events might be of interest to the Community?

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discussion

Good Reads?

Hi-- What are good books about the Trade and Wildlife Crime? I'll start with LIZARD KING - by Bryan Christy - this was a really good book because it...

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Keeping this thread active. 

POACHED - Inside the Dark World of Wildlife Trafficking

by Rachel Love Nuwer

This is super interesting, and gives a really good look at poaching.  Rachel goes in depth and reports back from the field, including an inside look at the CITES meetings. This opens lots of issues that need to be addressed.

 

There are two great articles about the issue of bird poaching in the Mediterranean and its serious threat to Palaearctic bird populations by Jonathan Franzen.

A 2010 article in the New Yorker,

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/07/26/emptying-the-skies

and a 2013 National Geographic feature,

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2013/07/songbird-migration/

I wrote a 2017 blog post for National Geographic about the topic of bird poaching in Cyprus,

https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2017/11/21/can-anti-poaching-activism-save-25-million-birds-a-year/

Regards,

Jason

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discussion

can we detect gillnets in turbid water?

Hey wildlabers! I'm trying to come with a way to detect artisanal gillnets in the Mekong river – the river dolphins can’t see them and get stuck in them....

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Hi Aurelie,

I do some work in underwater robotics and it's a tough problem!  Maybe there is a way around the problem instead of through.  May I ask, is the goal specifically to map where the nets are within a certain stretch of river, or to be able to ensure there are no nets wihin the area, or...?

Thanks,

-harold

Yes, I agree it's a tough problem - i'm certainly stumped ;)

 

but thanks so much for your reply and counter question - the goal is to find these gillnets and remove them...and we don't want to be pulling up every net and buoy...

 

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