With new technologies revolutionizing data collection, wildlife researchers are becoming increasingly able to collect data at much higher volumes than ever before. Now we are facing the challenges of putting this information to use, bringing the science of big data into the conservation arena. With the help of machine learning tools, this area holds immense potential for conservation practices. The applications range from online trafficking alerts to species-specific early warning systems to efficient movement and biodiversity monitoring and beyond.
However, the process of building effective machine learning tools depends upon large amounts of standardized training data, and conservationists currently lack an established system for standardization. How to best develop such a system and incentivize data sharing are questions at the forefront of this work. There are currently multiple AI-based conservation initiatives, including Wildlife Insights and WildBook, that are pioneering applications on this front.
This group is the perfect place to ask all your AI-related questions, no matter your skill level or previous familiarity! You'll find resources, meet other members with similar questions and experts who can answer them, and engage in exciting collaborative opportunities together.
Just getting started with AI in conservation? Check out our introduction tutorial, How Do I Train My First Machine Learning Model? with Daniel Situnayake, and our Virtual Meetup on Big Data. If you're coming from the more technical side of AI/ML, Sara Beery runs an AI for Conservation slack channel that might be of interest. Message her for an invite.
Header Image: Dr Claire Burke / @CBurkeSci
Explore the Basics: AI
Understanding the possibilities for incorporating new technology into your work can feel overwhelming. With so many tools available, so many resources to keep up with, and so many innovative projects happening around the world and in our community, it's easy to lose sight of how and why these new technologies matter, and how they can be practically applied to your projects.
Machine learning has huge potential in conservation tech, and its applications are growing every day! But the tradeoff of that potential is a big learning curve - or so it seems to those starting out with this powerful tool!
To help you explore the potential of AI (and prepare for some of our upcoming AI-themed events!), we've compiled simple, key resources, conversations, and videos to highlight the possibilities:
Three Resources for Beginners:
- Everything I know about Machine Learning and Camera Traps, Dan Morris | Resource library, camera traps, machine learning
- Using Computer Vision to Protect Endangered Species, Kasim Rafiq | Machine learning, data analysis, big cats
- Resource: WildID | WildID
Three Forum Threads for Beginners:
- I made an open-source tool to help you sort camera trap images | Petar Gyurov, Camera Traps
- Batch / Automated Cloud Processing | Chris Nicolas, Acoustic Monitoring
- Looking for help with camera trapping for Jaguars: Software for species ID and database building | Carmina Gutierrez, AI for Conservation
Three Tutorials for Beginners:
- How do I get started using machine learning for my camera traps? | Sara Beery, Tech Tutors
- How do I train my first machine learning model? | Daniel Situnayake, Tech Tutors
- Big Data in Conservation | Dave Thau, Dan Morris, Sarah Davidson, Virtual Meetups
Want to know more about AI, or have your specific machine learning questions answered by experts in the WILDLABS community? Make sure you join the conversation in our AI for Conservation group!
Holder of BSc in Applied Zoology. Ecologist at Ruaha National park
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I'm a software developer. I have open source projects in practical object detection and alerting that is well suited for poacher detection and a Raspberry Pi based sound localizing ARU project
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- @CathyNj
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Catherine Njore is a seasoned Cartographer with over 17yrs experience and specializing in children cartography. She recently designed a Cartography: Fun with Maps Program(CFMP); a program that assists children to learn how to draw, read and use maps effectively.
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Software Engineer interested in Conservation Tech
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working on the digital transformation for environment, climate, and conservation
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- @raquelgo
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Worked as a mechanical engineer for a defence co, then software engineer, then for a research lab specialising in underwater robotics.
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Software Engineer
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- @carlybatist
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Science Outreach Lead-Rainforest Connection (RFCx) & Arbimon; Ecoacoustics, biodiversity monitoring, primates, lemurs
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- @StephODonnell
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WILDLABS & Fauna & Flora
I'm the Executive Manager at WILDLABS.
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WILDLABS & Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)
I hold a PhD in Biological Sciences and specialize in bioacoustics and passive acoustic monitoring of cetaceans in the Argentine Sea and Antarctica. Recently, I've also embraced computing to leverage technology in enhancing our conservation efforts.
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Are you ready for the Plastic Data Challenge? This global contest wants your innovative ideas for improving the plastic waste management and recycling chain in South and Southeast Asia. Participants can consider...
3 March 2020
The 2020 Tusk Awards are now accepting nominations of outstanding individuals who have made a significant impact on conservation in Africa. These nominations offer the rare and exciting opportunity to honor your peers...
3 March 2020
Conservation X Labs welcomes you to enter the Artisanal Mining Grand Challenge, a competition aimed at finding new and innovative solutions to the environmental problems caused by mining operations. This competition...
26 February 2020
Researchers are increasingly placing microphones in forests and other ecosystems to monitor birds, insects, frogs, and other animals. As the technology advances and becomes less costly, proponents argue, bioacoustics is...
24 February 2020
The Arribada Initiative is back with an update on their thermal elephant alert system which aims to reduce human-elephant conflict (HEC). The success of their system rests on the ability of a camera to accurately...
17 February 2020
Applications are now open for a second round of the £10 million UK Seafood Innovation Fund to transform the future landscape of the seafood industry.
11 February 2020
Fueled by Artificial Intelligence, Wildlife Insights provides access to over 4.5 million camera trap records.
17 December 2019
Ahead of the upcoming Camera Trapping Sympoisum, organiser Arie Hammond has compiled a list of key resources for camera trapping, covering everything from reading lists for beginners to data sets, models and tools for...
5 November 2019
Microbial fuel cells, developed by Plant-powered Camera Trap Challenge winners Plant-E, have been used successfully with Xnor.ai's energy harvesting camera technology to capture what are thought to be the world's first...
15 October 2019
In a first, UMass Amherst, Cornell use AI to mine big migration data on massive scale
9 October 2019
Rutgers University, Microsoft AI for Earth, Google Earth Outreach and San Diego Zoo Global are proud to announce the world’s first camera trap technology symposium, to take place November 7th and 8th at Google...
2 September 2019
Sharing failure, tech support for conservation, roaming mentors, conservation tech hype cycles and developing new road maps - participants in our tech workshops at ICCB 2019 shared an abundance of ideas for how to shape...
21 August 2019
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Yes please reach out with any questions on acoustic monitoring, Arbimon, RFCx, etc.! |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Data management and processing tools | 1 year 2 months ago | |
I couldn't agree more with both of these comments tom! I'm reading hundreds (literally hundreds) of applications for open WILDLABS roles at the moment, and the ones that stand out... |
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AI for Conservation, Drones, Early Career, Sensors | 1 year 2 months ago | |
We have made available our underwater videos on YouTube as a playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnhVZKKy8WkZKriCIV6r7upWhHNVrU_7L It's about 1.113 short video... |
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AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Data management and processing tools, Marine Conservation | 1 year 3 months ago | |
Hi Steph, This should be a simple project. Recently I came across a website with a sample video I am not sure whether it was from the wild Labs website. Where a camera is... |
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AI for Conservation, Camera Traps | 1 year 3 months ago | |
Bluesky have a commercial tree crown dataset available covering most of Great Britain (England, Wales and parts of Scotland). There is a canopy layer with approximate outlines of... |
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AI for Conservation, Drones | 1 year 3 months ago | |
Rainforest Connection's (RFCx) Guardian devices may be of interest. They are solar-powered and have connectivity options for Wifi, GSM and satellite transfer. They've previously... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Connectivity, Data management and processing tools, Protected Area Management Tools, Sensors | 1 year 3 months ago | |
My original background is in ecology and conservation, and am now in the elected leadership of the Gathering for Open Science Hardware which convenes researchers developing open... |
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AI for Conservation, Biologging, Camera Traps, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Data management and processing tools, Drones, Emerging Tech, Sensors | 1 year 4 months ago | |
Hi Sophie, Can you please help me or get in touch in developing a system where we are able to detect an Elephant? Would like to discuss more about it. Kindly treat this as urgent!! |
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AI for Conservation | 1 year 4 months ago | |
Hello All - @sarabeery et Al have just put a pre-print out on their educational insights into teaching Computer Vision to ecologists. I... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Early Career, Emerging Tech | 1 year 4 months ago | |
The Conservation Technology Lab at San Diego Zoo seeks undergrads for summer projects in computer vision, machine learning, bioacoustics,... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Conservation Tech Training and Education | 1 year 5 months ago | |
I just came across this interesting paper in which seismic monotoring of animals like elephants was mentioned. This is the study refered to:Cheers,Lars |
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AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Emerging Tech, Ethics of Conservation Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Remote Sensing & GIS, Sensors | 1 year 5 months ago | |
Quick reminder that the deadline for applications is just shy of a week away. This workshop is particularly geared to teach ecologists computer vision tools to apply to their... |
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Conservation Tech Training and Education, AI for Conservation | 1 year 5 months ago |
Recruiting for a paid study on Explainable AI & bird identification
1 June 2024 8:34pm
Announcing: BeetlePalooza 2024
31 May 2024 9:00pm
Has anyone combined flying drone surveys with AI for counting wild herds?
14 April 2024 3:40pm
27 May 2024 10:55am
Actually my Raspberry Pi application is a sound localizer not related to image recognition. My image recognition related project runs on Jetsons and higher.
But I think recognizing bugs on a drone would likely be challenging. You would have to have sufficient detail to get good recognition which would be a very narrow field of view and then vibration also becomes an issue.
For example, the trainings on just the coco dataset seems to distill the recognition of people to a multi-segmented thing with bits sticking out. So spiders on camera lens are highly likely to be seen as people. To get better results much more training data is needed. I expect it's also likely to be the case for insects, really large amounts of training data would be needed to tell the difference between different types.
31 May 2024 5:47pm
Hi Johnathan,
There is a Canadian company more or less doing that. They have their own endurance drone and optical/thermal cameras. Very much keyed into surveys and they may have success given the number of helicopter accidents we have had in Western Canada. Not sure if the AI part is there yet.
I know they've done surveys with at least one department here but not much beyond that. I talked to one of the developers their just as a point of interest. The current leadership today looks different than I remember though.
Mass Detection of Wildlife Snares Using Airborne Synthetic Radar
7 January 2024 6:50am
24 May 2024 2:02pm
Happy to help out with the processing of the SAR images and building a model on top of it.
28 May 2024 5:06am
Hi @DaveGaynor regarding funding, have you reached out to any lodges? I know that snaring is rife in the Manyaleti ... maybe some of the lodges in the Sabi Sands would be interested in helping you with your goal?
31 May 2024 12:57pm
Aakash, that is a really amazing offer, we really need people capable of analyzing the radar data and used to working with signal processing I will reach out to you now.
🌟 Seeking a Mentor in Software Engineering 🌟
30 May 2024 10:46am
Bioacoustics and AI 101
29 May 2024 2:21pm
9th Workshop On Detection and Classification of Acoustic Scenes and Events
28 May 2024 8:57pm
32nd European Signal Processing Conference
28 May 2024 8:44pm
5th World Ecoacoustics Congress
28 May 2024 8:07pm
Indigenous communities and AI for Conservation
8 May 2024 12:32pm
8 May 2024 7:04pm
Oh yeah that would be awesome! Let me email you to follow up. I assume you're working with Alec Christie then? He was sharing your team's work in our chatgpt discussion:
9 May 2024 10:26am
Yes, exactly! Alec and I are working together on this.
24 May 2024 3:53pm
I am also commenting for future notifications - very interested to hear some responses.
While not directly related to AI, here in Canada there's quite a conversation around data sovereignty for Indigenous communities, such as OCAP (Ownership, Control, Access, Possession) which may be able to connect you with some of the big players in this part of the world. There is also a few efforts to incorporate more Indigenous knowledge systems in statistical modelling which may be of interest: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.07.556613v1.full.pdf
Computational Entomology Webinar III: Processing liquid samples
22 May 2024 12:40am
DeepDive: estimating global biodiversity patterns through time using deep learning
20 May 2024 4:51pm
These authors "develop an approach based on stochastic simulations of biodiversity and a deep learning model to infer richness at global or regional scales through time while incorporating spatial, temporal and taxonomic sampling variation."
Successfully integrated deepfaune into video alerting system
2 December 2023 11:15am
3 May 2024 3:07pm
Yeah. I’ve seen the video. Very nice. Good luck with that ! Let us know how it goes.
4 May 2024 12:44pm
Hi Thijs, the use of that inflatable device to scare off bears suggests that the location you are using it has significant power available.
Is this a common situation for the places in Romania that have bear trouble ? Because I think your other systems were running off batteries is that correct ?
12 May 2024 2:59pm
Yes, this system is designed to be installed near farms. We also have the repeller system with audio & light, that is battery & solar powered. This system is a "last line of defence". The blowers alone requires 1000 watts :)
4th International Workshop onCamera Traps, AI, and Ecology
9 May 2024 1:00pm
Harnessing large language models for coding, teaching and inclusion to empower research in ecology and evolution
9 May 2024 12:51pm
Check out this paper that reviews the current state of AI in conservation.
Voices of Sustainability: Perspectives from - Africa Wholesome Sustainability Explained: What is E-PIE
7 May 2024 3:06am
ChatGPT for conservation
16 January 2023 10:04am
2 May 2024 9:39pm
In my experience, ChatGPT-4 performs significantly better than version 3.5, especially in terms of contextual understanding. However, like any AI model, inaccuracies cannot be completely eliminated. I've also seen a video showing that Gemini appears to excel at literature reviews, though I haven't personally tested it yet. Here's the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPiOP_CB54A.
4 May 2024 6:44am
While GPT3.5 is good for some activities, GPT-4 and GPT4-turbo are much better. Anthropic Claude is also very good, on a par with GPT4 for many tasks. As someone else has mentioned, the key is in the prompt you use, though chatGPT is continually being extended to allow more contextual information to be included, for example external files that have been uploaded previously. Code execution and image generation are also possible with the paid version of chatGPT, and the latest models include data up to the end of 2023 (I think). You can also include calls to openAI or other APIs programatically to include these in your workflows for assisting with a variety of tasks.
Regarding end results - as always, we're responsible for whatever outputs are ultimately published/shared etc.
For Conservation Evidence - you could try making your own GPT (chatGPT assistant) that can be published/shared using your own evidence base and prompt that should be well grounded and provide good responses (I should think). But don't use 3.5 for that, IMO.
4 May 2024 8:28pm
Undoubted things will quickly evolve from just "straight" ChatGPTn, BARD, ClaudeAI, etc "standard" models, to more specialized Retrieval Augmentation Generation (RAG) , where facts from authoritative sources and rules are supplied as context for the LLM to summarize in its response. You can direct ChatGPT and BARD: "Your response must be based on the reference sections provided" up to a few K of tokens. A huge amount of work is going into properly indexing reference materials in order to supply context to the reference models. Folks like FAO and CGIAR are indexing all their agricultural knowledge to feed the standard ones with location, crop, livestock, etc specialty "knowledge" to provide farmers automated advice via mobile phones, etc. I can totally see the same for such mundane things as "how do I ... using ArcMAP or QGIS?" purely based on the vast amount of documentation and tutorials. Google, ChatGPT, etc do a really good job already; this is just totally focusing its response to the body of knowledge known in advance to be relevant.
I would highly recommend folks do some searching on "LLM RAG" - that's what going nuts now across the board.
Then there's stuff I like to call "un-SQL" ... unstructured query language .. that will take free-form queries to form SQL queries, with supporting visualization code.
see:
"https://mlnotes.substack.com/p/no-more-text2sql-its-now-rag2sql"
"http://censusgpt.com"
etc.
As far as writing and evaluating proposals, I saw a paper on how summarization of public review forms are being developed in several cities.
see: "http://streetleveladvisors.com/?p=181562"
And that's just the standard LLMs; super-specialized LLMs based on Facebook Llama are being built purely based on domain-specific bodies of dialog - medical, etc. LOTS of Phds to be done.
I think what will be critical in all this are strong audit trails and certification mechanisms to gain trust. Especially when it comes to deceptive simple terms like "best"
Chris
AI & Gamified Citizen Science
3 May 2024 7:24am
3 May 2024 5:09pm
Check out FathomVerse, a new game by MBARI folks for involving citizen scientists in improving algorithms to ID deep sea critters!
3 May 2024 8:28pm
This is so cool! I am 1000% going to see if they want to come talk about it at Variety Hou!
Travel grants for insect monitoring an AI
3 May 2024 5:20pm
Drop-deployed HydroMoth
2 April 2024 10:20am
15 April 2024 6:53am
Hi Matthew,
Thanks for your advice, this is really helpful!
I'm planning to use it in a seagrass meadow survey for a series of ~20 drops/sites to around 30 m, recording for around 10 minutes each time, in Cornwall, UK.
At this stage I reckon we won't exceed 30 m, but based on your advice, I think this sounds like not the best setup for the surveys we want to try.
We will try the Aquarian H1a, attached to the Zoom H1e unit, through a PVC case. This is what Aquarian recommended to me when I contacted them too.
Thanks for the advice, to be honest the software component is what I was most interested in when it came to the AudioMoth- is there any other open source software you would recommend for this?
Best wishes,
Sol
21 April 2024 7:10pm
Hey Sol,
No problem at all. Depending on your configuration, the Audiomoth software would have to work on a PCB with an ESP32 chip which is the unit on the audiomoth/hydromoth, so you would have to make a PCB centered around this chip. You could mimic the functionality of the audiomoth software on another chip, like on a raspberry pi with python's pyaudio library for example. The problem you would have is that the H1A requires phantom power, so it's not plug and play. I'm not too aware with the H1e, but maybe you can control the microphone through the recorder that is programmable through activations by the RPi (not that this is the most efficient MCU for this application, but it is user friendly). A simpler solution might be to just record continuously and play a sound or take notes of when your 10 min deployment starts. I think it should last you >6 hours with a set of lithium energizer batteries. You may want to think about putting a penetrator on the PVC housing for a push button or switch to start when you deploy. They make a few waterproof options.
Just somethign else that occured to me, but if you're dropping these systems, you'll want to ensure that the system isn't wobbling in the seagrass as that will probably be all you will hear on the recordings, especially if you plan to deploy shallower. For my studies in Curacao, we aim to be 5lbs negative, but this all depends on your current and surface action. You might also want to think about the time of day you're recording biodiversity in general. I may suggest recording the site for a bit (a couple days or a week) prior to your study to see what you should account for (e.g. tide flow/current/anthropogenic disturbance) and determine diel patterning of vocalizations you are aiming to collect if subsampling at 10 minutes.
Cheers,
Matt
3 May 2024 12:55pm
Hi Sol,
If the maximum depth is 30m, it would be worth experimenting with HydroMoth in this application especially if the deployment time is short. As Matt says, the air-filed case means it is not possible to accurately calibrate the signal strength due to the directionality of the response. For some applications, this doesn't matter. For others, it may.
Another option for longer/deeper deployments would be an Aquarian H2D hydrophone which will plug directly into AudioMoth Dev or AudioMoth 1.2 (with the 3.5mm jack added). You can then use any appropriately sized battery pack.
If you also connect a magnetic switch, as per the GPS board, you can stop and start recording from outside the housing with the standard firmware.
Alex
AI-enabled image query system
2 May 2024 2:16am
Elephant Collective Behaviour Project - Principal Investigator
1 May 2024 1:59pm
The Inventory User Guide
1 May 2024 12:46pm
Introducing The Inventory!
1 May 2024 12:46pm
2 May 2024 3:08pm
3 May 2024 5:33pm
17 May 2024 7:29am
Hiring Chief Engineer at Conservation X Labs
1 May 2024 12:19pm
AI for wolf ID
29 April 2024 7:09pm
Earth Blox dataset review: Meta Global Canopy Height (1m)
23 May 2024 7:23pm
27 May 2024 8:58am
AI volunteer work
3 February 2024 12:29pm
24 April 2024 10:59am
Hi Phani,
An entry point might be to participate in a challenge related to conservation on:
You could also reach out to a conservation organization (e. g. WWF or something smaller and more local) and ask them directly whether there's an opportunity for you to volunteer, perhaps even suggest an idea and maybe they find it useful.
I hope you find an opportunity you're looking for!
MegaDetector v5 release
20 June 2022 9:06pm
23 April 2024 9:43pm
Hi @dmorris,
might you have encountered this issue while working with Mega detector v5?
The conflict is caused by:
pytorchwildlife 1.0.2.13 depends on torch==1.10.1
pytorchwildlife 1.0.2.12 depends on torch==1.10.1
pytorchwildlife 1.0.2.11 depends on torch==1.10.1
if yes what solution helped?
23 April 2024 10:38pm
I'm sorry, I don't use PyTorch-Wildlife; I recommend filing an issue on their repo. Good luck!
23 April 2024 10:38pm
[oops, the same reply got submitted twice and there doesn't seem to be a "delete" button]
Pytorch-Wildlife: A Collaborative Deep Learning Framework for Conservation (v1.0)
21 February 2024 10:30pm
26 February 2024 11:58pm
This is great, thank you so much @zhongqimiao ! I will check it out and looking forward for the upcoming tutorial!
17 April 2024 11:07am
Hi everyone! @zhongqimiao was kind enough to join Variety Hour last month to talk more about Pytorch-Wildlife, so the recording might be of interest to folks in this thread. Catch up here:
23 April 2024 9:48pm
Hi @zhongqimiao ,
Might you have faced such an issue while using mega detector
The conflict is caused by:
pytorchwildlife 1.0.2.13 depends on torch==1.10.1
pytorchwildlife 1.0.2.12 depends on torch==1.10.1
pytorchwildlife 1.0.2.11 depends on torch==1.10.1
if yes how did you solve it, or might you have any ideas?
torch 1.10.1 doesn't seem to exist
26 May 2024 7:16pm
And here is an idea that will develop in parallel. I happen to live near a bunch of greenhouses. Do you think your raspberry pi application could operate a drone inside a greenhouse? I mean could it be taught to recognize a flying insect, in the nicely constrained greenhouse environment? For example there's only a few kinds of bugs in there I bet.
The drone also has one of those small vacuum cleaners, like a Dyson stick. Then it needs to guide the drone to where the vacuum can grab the flying moth or pest. If I could get a few of those flying I could maybe pay for phase 2.