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Protected Area Management Tools / Feed

Protected area management systems empower essential frontline conservationists to monitor wildlife and ecosystems in real-time. With tools like SMART, EarthRanger, and Esri's Conservation Land Management toolkit, users can collect, integrate, and display data from across landscapes to ensure that key information from the field gets to decision-makers in time to make a difference. This group is the place for new and experienced users of these tools alike to ask questions, share experiences, and work together to improve their effectiveness in critical conservation landscapes around the world. 
discussion

Getting behavioral data out of datasets that weren't built for it

Maggie Bliss

16 June 2026 3:49pm

Burning question:There's so much monitoring data already- camera trap archives, acoustic recordings, GPS tracks - but almost all of it was collected to answer presence/absence or...

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Peter Apps

10 July 2026 12:55pm

I have tens of thousands of camera trap bycatch African mammal videos that are available for analysis to anyone who can turn them into published papers, data that is actually useful for conservation, or publicity for wildlife and conservation.

They are already manually sorted into carnivores / herbivores and the carnivores are sorted and/or tagged to species. I do not have the resources to do anything further with them. 

 

 

Maggie Bliss

14 July 2026 1:18am

Peter, this is a generous offer - thank you. A dataset that's already sorted carnivore/herbivore with carnivores tagged to species is a real head start, and the fact that it's bycatch from another purpose is exactly the kind of "data built for one question, useful for another" material I've been thinking about.

A few questions to figure out fit: what capture mode are the videos - continuous clips, triggered bursts, fixed intervals? And roughly how long are the clips? I'm interested in whether there's enough temporal continuity to read behavior (time budgets, activity sequences), not just presence/absence. Also curious which species are best represented, and what any reuse would look like on your end in terms of credit and terms.

I'd genuinely like to explore turning some of this into something publishable and conservation-useful. Would you be open to a direct conversation off-thread?

Warmly,
Maggie

Maggie Bliss

14 July 2026 1:27am

Kim, this is great - thank you for sharing it. And to answer directly: yes, footage like this is genuinely useful for behavioral work, precisely because a continuous clip establishes a whole ecological scene rather than a single detection.

What's nice here is the range of behavior visible at once. The mother is engaged in what looks like foraging, while the juveniles are showing enrichment behaviors - exploratory, playful, curious, moving freely and not staying tethered to her. Posture and pose carry a lot of the signal too: tail position, body orientation, how attention is directed. That's the kind of thing you can only read when you have temporal continuity and enough frame to see the whole animal.

One question it raises - and this is exactly the interpretive challenge I find interesting - is whether the mother is actually foraging or "reading" the landscape through scent, which looks similar on camera but means something quite different behaviorally. Disambiguating those is where the real work is.

I'd love to hear more about your setup and how much footage like this you're generating. Continuous thermal at this quality, running for months, is a valuable stream.

Maggie

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discussion

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

Mandy Eyrich

11 February 2026 3:29am

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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Mandy Eyrich

19 February 2026 3:35am

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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discussion

Nature Tech Unconference - Anyone attending?

Elsa

8 March 2025 12:11pm

Hi all, anyone planning to attend the Nature Tech Unconference on 28th March at the London School of Economics Campus in London, UK? (the event is free to attend but...

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Elsa

13 May 2026 12:05pm

Myself and the Fauna & Flora Conservation Technology team will be there (@Chelsea_Smith  and @ugyenpenjor ) and also the WILDLABS team @HRees ! See you!

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discussion

Custom Hydrophone Records Dolphins

Brett Smith

23 April 2026 3:33pm

 A few years back, we began work in earnest on our DFAD recycling project in Seychelles.During the exploratory phase - we experimented with every high value use for the buoys...

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Walter Zimmer

3 May 2026 7:46am

Brett, you may reach out to @Lucille, who under the auspices of the Partnership  for Observation of the Global Ocean (POGO), the Scientific Committee of Ocean Research (SCOR), and the International Quiet Ocean Experiment (IQOE) is managing the development of LC-MARE a low cost marine acoustic recorder.  An ultra low power ADC is indeed an important component, so there may be some synergies.

Elionai

6 May 2026 3:35pm

This is really interesting — especially the part about experimenting with different high-value uses.

I’m currently working on a small edge AI project for ecosystem monitoring, and it’s made me realize how different things can look outside of controlled environments.

Out of curiosity, during those experiments, what ended up being the biggest constraint — was it more about technical feasibility, cost, or something unexpected in real-world conditions?

 

Chris Nicholas

11 May 2026 7:34pm

cool! 
When you say: "...first usable result that validates our hardware and software signal chain." can you share what those chains are? 

As for connectivity, yeah, that's a HUGE challenge ... Can you do SMS-level connectivity to Starlinks?

I presume you'd want to log basic temp/salinity, and perhaps include a basic accelerometer for wave motion over something like MQTT. 

As for pushing down bioacoustic processing to the devices, yeah, would be awesome to do some minimal envelope threshold detection, and just send back compressed versions of 'the good stuff' .  Maybe even listen for propellers and/or fishing sonar too, and send EarthRanger alerts.

And of course you'd want to do OTA updates, which in turn introduces security, etc.

Fun project!

 

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discussion

Are you Using EarthRanger?

Netty Cheruto

9 June 2022 6:02am

Hey Everyone,We recently ran our first workshop for the Women in Conservation Technology Programme, Kenya and in our interactions with the cohort, one of the things that stood out...

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Rupert Dook

16 March 2023 4:55pm

Netty,

I was recently working with a client integrating Internet of Things hardware alerts through EarthRanger to automatically create a work order and dispatch fieldworkers to deal with the alert issue. Unfortunately the client has become very busy and the work put on hold, but we are interested in completing the integration to the benefit of all those using EarthRanger. Do you have a contact at EarthRanger who we could deal with directly?

Rupert

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careers

Ecological Data Scientist

Lacey Hughey

21 April 2026 9:22pm

The Smithsonian Institution is the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex, with 21 museums and the National Zoo. This position is located in the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology...

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discussion

East Africa coordination between ICTC Peru and GCTDF Kenya – informal community update

David Guerin

27 January 2026 12:52am

I’m posting this specifically for East Africa–based WILDLABS community members.WILDLABS is leading the International Conservation Technology Conference (ICTC) in Peru, and there...

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Cephas Eddy Omondi

24 February 2026 1:03pm

How are current drone pilots in the Mara handling biometric authorization for flight logs to ensure data integrity?

Elsa

25 February 2026 11:27am

Hi @DavidGlobalDroneForum , I have attended ICTC and tried to be in the drone-related sessions as much as possible. I'm am not based in Africa but very much would like to better understand how drones are being used there as the organisation I work for are keen to increase the use of drones in that area. Would be happy to contribute in some way with reflections depending on timeline. Unfortunately I won't attend the conference in Kenya in person. I have also signed up to the Drone WG so was hoping to share something then too!

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discussion

Women in Conservation Forum (WiCF) 2nd March in Nairobi: GoFundMe platform

Macayle Rose Guerin

30 January 2026 5:14am

Hello all, We have set up a GoFundMe platform for Women in Conservation Forum. Our goal is to make the day as open and accessible as possible. We would greatly...

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Susan Chege Reuben

30 January 2026 10:52am

Hello Macayle

It is of great pleasure that there is this opportunity coming to East Africa. I would like to attend this. Do you have any recommendation for funding  a student to attend such a forum? I will share this opportunity with our East Africa WhatsApp group too.

Macayle Rose Guerin

2 February 2026 2:33am

Hi Susan, 

Thank you for your message. 

I apologise, but as we are a non-profit and mostly volunteer-run, we are presently unable to provide funding support to people to travel to Nairobi for the forum. 

Thank you for sharing WiCF with the whatsapp community; that’s lovely of you!

I can write up an official letter of invitation if that would help with a university bursary application, and WiCF attendees will receive a certificate of attendance for the day. 

I have a small invitation flyer; feel free to share this with others who may be interested. 

Kind regards,

Macayle 

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discussion

Women in Marine Conservation session in the Women in Conservation Forum (WiCF) day 2nd March in Nairobi, Kenya. 

Macayle Rose Guerin

30 January 2026 4:52am

Hello everyone, We have speaker slots available in the Women in Marine Conservation session in WiCF on Monday 2nd March in Nairobi! This hour-long...

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Macayle Rose Guerin

30 January 2026 4:56am

Disclaimer: The related organisations in the blue box below are not partnership statements. I am merely trying to spread the word. We only have official partnerships (e.g. by an MoU) with CCF and WildDrone for the GCTDF. 

Thank you! 

Susan Chege Reuben

30 January 2026 10:55am

Hi Macayle

Are these two different forums; one in Mombasa and other in Nairobi? can you make me understand please?

 

Macayle Rose Guerin

1 February 2026 2:02am

Hi Susan, We are just organising the one – Global Conservation Tech and Drone Forum 2-6 March in Nairobi. Women in Conservation Forum is a one-day forum on 2nd March, part of the wider GCTDF. https://www.gctdf.org/agenda I was merely mentioning the Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa because of its importance in marine conservation.
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article

Join the 2026 #Tech4Wildlife Challenge! (Feb. 2-6)

WILDLABS Team

20 January 2026 6:21pm

For the 10th year in a row, we’re inviting the community to share photos and videos of how they’re engaging with technology for wildlife conservation. Participate to connect with the community, vote for your favorites,...

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Carly Batist

20 January 2026 10:22pm

Best time of the year! 

Susan Chege Reuben

2 February 2026 9:45am

This year am In for the @tech4Wildlife challenge

Barnabas Sani

25 February 2026 9:47am

Any prize for the winners?
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