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!
San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance
Lead, San Diego Zoo Conservation Technology Lab
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Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology
Undertake and develop biodiversity monitoring
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- @Becky_Heath
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University of Cambridge & Imperial College London
Interdisciplinary scientist working in field data collection methods and tropical agriculture
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I am a Senior researcher and PI in Conservation and Animal Ecology at Fondazione Edmund Mach, Trento, Italy. I am coordinator of EUROMAMMALS, member of the advisory board of the Global Initiative on Ungulate Migration at CMS, and President of the International Bio-Logging Society
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- @serena.le
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Conservation tech enthusiast
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- @Pepyanyabuma
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Conservationist/ecologist
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Data Science | Remote Sensing | GIS | Geospatial Cloud Computing | Big Data
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Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)
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- @mclapham
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BearID Project
Conservation biologist using camera traps to develop automated methods of photoID
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- @NicoLaur
- | He/Him
PhD Student in Disease Ecology, Taxonomy and biomonitoring in Central Africa
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Our panel of international experts has been hard at work reviewing the 47 proposals we recieved for innovative technological tools to address human wildlife conflict. The panelists have systematically been assessing the...
20 October 2017
The Domain Awareness System (DAS) is a revolution in monitoring technology, creating real-time awareness of protected areas assets. This technology has the potential to completely change standard monitoring procedures...
26 September 2017
Frustrated by the limitations of the tools that were available for managing large camera trap data sets, Heidi Hendry and Chris Mann set out to develop something that met their needs, and thus, Camelot was born. In...
7 July 2017
Funding
The European Space Agency is calling for Kick-Start ideas to leverage space technology for wildlife protection. Three main topics of interest have been identified: 1) Wildlife monitoring, tracking and inventory, 2)...
5 July 2017
Its been a busy couple of months for the Open Acoustic Devices team. They've just returned back from Belize where they have been trialling the new AudioMoth design for gunshot detection. Find out what they've been up to...
27 June 2017
Article
There is a revolution coming in conservation. Advances in conservation technology are generating more data than ever before on what lives where, who eats who, and what’s disappearing and how fast, but it still requires...
10 May 2017
Researchers have identified 15 emerging risks and opportunities for species and ecosystems around the world in a recent horizon scanning exercise.
31 March 2017
The Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP) is a training and capacity building programme that targets individuals from developing countries who are early in their conservation career and demonstrate leadership...
21 November 2016
FishFace is a new application under development by The Nature Conservancy in partnership with Refind Technologies. Similar to facial recognition software used to identify people, FishFace uses artificial intelligence to...
10 November 2016
More than half of all primate species are endangered, including our closest living relative, the chimpanzee. Could Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) be applied to primates as well as it has been for other taxa? In this...
29 June 2016
Operating the largest tropical forest camera trap network globally, TEAM Network has accumulated over 2.6 million images. How can large datasets coupled with new techniques for data management and analysis provide...
28 April 2016
Camera traps have revolutionised wildlife research and conservation, enabling scientists to collect photographic evidence of rarely seen and often globally endangered species, with low expense, relative ease, and...
20 April 2016
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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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 6 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 6 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 6 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 7 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 7 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 7 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 8 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 8 months ago | |
Hahaha, now I see why you were asking ... |
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AI for Conservation | 1 year 8 months ago | |
Hi all, one of the 8 MozFest 2023 spaces is 'Tech & Biodiversity', and the organisers seek input for an event on the intersection of... |
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AI for Conservation, Ethics of Conservation Tech, Open Source Solutions | 1 year 8 months ago | |
Out of curiosity, what are the similarities/differences between your platform and other image classification ones such as Wildlife Insights, WildID, ZambaCloud? I don't mean that... |
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AI for Conservation, Emerging Tech | 1 year 9 months ago | |
Thanks so much!! |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Biologging, Camera Traps, Community Base, Data management and processing tools, Drones, eDNA & Genomics, Emerging Tech, Open Source Solutions, Remote Sensing & GIS, Software and Mobile Apps | 1 year 10 months ago |
Building Experts Into AI
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15 March 2021 12:00am
Kaggle Competition: iWildcam 2021 - FGVC8
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12 March 2021 12:00am
Funding Opportunity: COVID-19 Science Fund
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10 March 2021 12:00am
Resource: WildID
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8 March 2021 12:00am
Looking help with camera trapping for Jaguars: Software for species ID and database building
23 February 2021 9:49pm
4 March 2021 9:34pm
Hi.
Thanks a lot for your explanation. I decided to try megadetector but I'm dumb with computers and of course I don't have a Nvidia graphical card, can you help me?
If it is better for you to talk directly, you can write to [email protected]
I'm so happy I can finally see the light with so many photos :)
Thanks again
Carmina
4 March 2021 11:06pm
Sure thing, I'll email you directly.
Tech Tutors: How do I strategically allocate drones for conservation?
16 February 2021 1:01pm
Transparency, AI, and Machine Learning Conservation Impacts
3 February 2021 10:12pm
5 February 2021 2:21pm
Hello,
Just spit-balling some ideas, but you might check out WildMe/WildBook, Widlife Insights, the ICARUS/Movebank project, Arbimon, Norway's new imaging initiative (https://www.planet.com/nicfi/), Hack the Poacher, Vulcan's EarthRanger, SmartParks, the SMART app/platform, the TEAM camera trap network?
Not sure if any of this is what you're looking for but just some things that came to mind!
13 February 2021 12:14am
Thanks Carly,
These are great ideas. The movebank recommendation reminds me of some work from Save the Elephants that used its transparency to exonerate an elephant that had been accused of eating up some crops. I didn't know about Hack the Poacher - I'll check that out. I'm familiar with the others, but will dig deeper to understand the transparency angle. I work on Wildlife Insights, so know that one well. TEAM has essentially morphed into Wildlife Insights as I understand things.
Thanks again!
Best,
Thau
Windows explorer video thumbnails
26 September 2019 9:31am
12 February 2021 7:10pm
This works very well, and can remove the movie strip icons from the edges of the thumbnails, which obscure animals just coming into the frame. https://icaros.en.softonic.com/
Intro to Embedded Machine Learning on Coursera
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9 February 2021 12:00am
Tech Tutors: How do How do I launch machine learning projects using MLOps?
3 February 2021 12:08pm
5 February 2021 7:16pm
Dan's comments about the need for technologists and conservationists to manage and share (properly annotated) data struck a chord with me, it was right at the end of the presentation.
I fired off a point into the chat "could your old background data be my background data?" or something similar, and it got me thinking...
(Firstly, sorry for clouding this issue with my simultaneous "Ian Tuna" joke)
In the context of using AI as described in EdgeImpulse example, lets say - audio.
Lets say Group A are trying to detect the roar of lions, and Group B are trying to detect the grunt of wild pigs, and lets imagine that is in roughly the same area of Africa. I mean they could both send out teams to capture the sound of their target animal, and the sound of NOT their target animal, e.g everything else.
Well if "serengetti sounds" was a known audio track, then all you need is the unique sound of the beast in question, am I right?
Seeking interviewees - AI in Conservation & nonprofits
9 December 2020 6:20am
16 January 2021 7:13am
Hi @Alex.L , I would suggest the same as for @mattzig at https://www.wildlabs.net/community/thread/1046#post-4348 :
I could try to connect you with some of the people and orgs we have worked with. If you go through https://www.vizzuality.com/project/ and identify the projects you would like to be look into, I can then try to connect you with the best person for each project.
And I would be very interested in learning more about your research group's work, besides your current research question, if possible!
Happy New Year! Luisa
28 January 2021 6:40am
HI Luisa,
Thank you so much for your help! I will definitely take a look at your organisation project list. I will be messaging you directly shortly. I would be glad to discuss my research group if it interest you.
Best,
Alex
4 February 2021 3:48pm
Hi Alex, that sounds great! Feel free to email me at [email protected], that may be simpler.
Tech Tutors: How do I start a Tech4Wildlife collaboration?
28 January 2021 12:55pm
28 January 2021 6:22pm
One barrier that was discussed in the presentation was the "risk" or uncertainty of a payoff when talking to potential funders. It seems to me that the "risk" factor of collaborations like this, for funders, would be analogous to the investment and payoff when developing a genomics program. Relative to traditional field research, it takes a much greater investment in time, with different expertise, to create a reference genome for a species of interest and then pull SNPs, etc. Nevertheless, funders seem to recognize the potential for genomic research and genomic tools. Do you think that greater openness to “risk” in conservation genomics results from closer intellectual proximity (i.e., molecular biology vs organismal biology), or to conservation genomics being a more mature field (i.e., more examples of success), or to other factors? If intellectual proximity is a key factor, then conservation tech collaborations will continue to face this barrier, but if lack of successful examples are a key factor, then perhaps this barrier will become less of an issue for conservation tech in the future. Thoughts?
30 January 2021 2:26am
Hi. Just watched the Youtube version (I'm in the unable to watch live hemisphere) and wanted to say that was a great talk. I wish it could have gone for another hour. I liked hearing about the issues and concerns from Melanie on the biology/ecology side. Also could totally relate to what Ed was talking about from the tech side about how it's difficult to have long term collaborations since there isn't really a conservation technology career path at the moment.
I think one of the things we're trying to do with courses like Build Your Own Datalogger is to get people involved in wildlife/conservation side more comfortable with the tech. The goal is to hopefully build a shared repository of technical knowledge that people in the wildlife community can contribute to and benefit from.
Akiba
Protecting Wildlife with Machine Learning
![](/sites/default/files/hackthepoacher-.jpg)
29 January 2021 12:00am
How do I launch machine learning projects using MLOps?
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25 January 2021 12:00am
How do I start a Tech4Wildlife collaboration?
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18 January 2021 12:00am
Edge Impulse Becomes the First AI Company to Join 1% for the Planet
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15 January 2021 12:00am
X-Prize for Rainforests
26 November 2019 9:19am
23 June 2020 7:06pm
I think if you added it to your calendar through the registration button on the Rainforest XPrize site, it added the link to join to your calendar.
30 June 2020 5:45pm
Hi everyone!
I only just came across this thread and the Rainforest XPrize. I would love to be a part of the team if it's not too late. I filled out the Google Sheet form with my experience, but I also wanted to post a note in the form. I have experience managing conservation tech projects (with some members of this forum!), testing tech in the field, and conducting biodiversity surveys in the Amazon. I read through the Google Docs notes from previous meetings and you all have some interesting ideas. I would love the be a part of future planning meetings if you'll have me!
11 January 2021 7:06pm
I know I'm very late, but I only discovered this recently. Is your team still active/accepting new members?
Tech Tutors: How do I use pattern matching analysis to label acoustic data with RFCxArbimon?
17 December 2020 3:31pm
17 December 2020 9:22pm
Thanks everybody for joining today's session! I've attached the article here that describes Pattern Matching in greater detail to respond to some of the questions from today's session.
Also, here is a link to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service for the individual who had questions about GDPR. Feel free to contact us at [email protected] with any other questions about the platform or Pattern Matching in general!
23 December 2020 3:21am
Zephyr and Marconi, thanks for the great talk and your hard work that made this platform available to the public!! I'm experimenting with the pattern matching function to create some training data but have issues trying to get the "Jobs'' to run. I only have 18 files for each of these tests, but only 1 processed to 11.1% while two others stay at 0%. The internet connection was briefly interrupted when I created the first job and was fine later on. I can only Hide, not delete or re-run these jobs, so I'm not sure what to do. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!
23 December 2020 3:27pm
Hi @pmnguyen1224 , thanks for reaching out and checking out the system! We would love to help ensure that you're able to get pattern matching to work for you! I do have a few questions for you so we can replicate issue you are experiencing. Would you mind emailing us a couple screenshots and your original message above at [email protected] to get started? Or feel free to send us a chat if that's easier, by clicking on the chat icon on https://arbimon.rfcx.org/. Looking forward to supporting you moving forward!
British Antarctic Survey: Monitoring Whales From Space
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21 December 2020 12:00am
Realtime video analysis using ML on Raspberry PI
25 September 2020 3:15pm
11 December 2020 12:19pm
Hi Andrew,
Yo need to train a lightweight DNN model for bird flocks which can then be deployed on Raspberry Pi. For initial starters, you can look into the below tutorial:
https://www.pyimagesearch.com/2017/10/16/raspberry-pi-deep-learning-object-detection-with-opencv/
Best
Piyush
How do I use pattern matching analysis to label acoustic data with RFCx Arbimon?
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8 December 2020 12:00am
FIS Call for Expressions of Interest (closed)
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8 December 2020 12:00am
Making the Most of Tech Tutors Season 2!
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30 November 2020 12:00am
Kaggle Competition: Species Audio Detection
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24 November 2020 12:00am
WILDLABS Tech Tutors: Season Two
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24 November 2020 12:00am
WILDLABS: Building a Better World with ‘Bad’ Data
17 November 2020 12:00am
Weekly Event: OTN Virtual Study Hall
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16 November 2020 12:00am
Google unveils search engine for open data
6 September 2018 4:26pm
10 September 2018 7:57am
I agree – this is a very welcome development, and it’s early days; I’m sure it will improve rapidly though. Whilst recognising that there are lots(!) of excellent data repositories out there already, with necessarily specialist functionality, there’s long been a need for something that can overarch these effectively, a ‘discovery portal of discovery portals’. Hopefully this can help do that.
After a cursory look, a couple of things struck me, from a user perspective: 1 –definitely some odd/limited search results at the moment, but as noted it’s early days – it’ll snowball as data owners get on board and standards adjust accordingly. 2 – more search tools would be beneficial e.g. date range tools, a map/bounding box search tool (cf Microsoft’s FetchClimate tool).
I also wanted to understand a bit more behind how it’s working – I assumed markup but wondered what ‘semantic web’ stuff this is drawing on. This article gives a bit more info, but I wonder how different it is to other efforts in this regard, e.g. how ARIES team have been developing semantic based tools to find best available datasets for ecosystem service modelling.
Final thought – it raises interesting questions and challenges about how to ensure things like quality and suitability are going to be measured objectively. It seems like this is an issue to be tackled as the tool develops and data owners engage more as it grows…
20 May 2020 10:24am
Hi all,
I'm fairly new to conservation technology and just getting acquainted with the extent and problems in the field. Data aggregation, standardisation and storage keep popping up as chronic problems across a lot of areas. Data seems to exist in sort of silos with different filing and access arrangements between them.
I would be interested to hear: Has the google dataset search improved drastically since its inception? Are there alternative solutions out there, or are there efforts to create them?
For example, from the bioacoustics meetup the other day, the vast datasets from the Australian Acoustic Observatory and Cornell Bioacoustics Centre don't seem to show up on google dataset search.
Andy the ARIES team you mentioned released a preview video of the interface with their ecosystem services modelling software. It seems really cool, is this something that would be useful for researchers outside of strict ecosystem services e.g. distributions of particular species temporally and spatially? What do you think of their software?
I'm not certain I'm asking the right questions here, but I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on any of this if you have any time.
15 November 2020 1:04am
This is great, thanks for sharing.
Using Computer Vision to Protect Endangered Species
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10 November 2020 12:00am
Hackathon Opportunity: Vaquita Hacks
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10 November 2020 12:00am
2 March 2021 3:44pm
Hi Carmina,
I definitely get not wanting to create another copy of your data, I realized this about Camelot just a little late, and we did have to buy a 4 TB external hard drive. The unique names that Camelot assigns to its copies of the data are also not friendly if you want to move things around.
I mentioned that Wild.ID is being more and more integrated with Wildlife Insights, but it can still be used as a standalone software. It has the same format as Camelot, but I think it doesn't create and additional copy (I might be wrong about this, though). You should take a look at this, it might be what you need.
As for detection, Camelot puts together batches of photos, uploads them to Microsoft's servers, and then gets the resulting database back. The model they use, however, is available and you can run it on your own computer. The AI model that it uses is called Megadetector. You used to have to run it from the command line, but recently Petar Gyurov posted this GUI that makes using Megadetector soooo much easier. You just tell the software where your photos are, and let it run. You can decide whether you trust it enough to sort your photos automatically, or check yourself. In most conditions it performs very well, you may have issues when you can only see parts of an animal behind some vegetation. The check would take less time than going through the raw pictures, since it marks boxes where it found things. You still have to identify the pictures after they're sorted. Megadetector will work on any computer, but it performs much faster if it has an Nvidia graphical card. However, setting this up is a little tricky.
Finally, the output from Megadetector can be integrated into the workflow of Timelapse, another software. I've never used this one so I can't really say how well it works.
Integrating everything can be a little intimidating, so feel free to ask if you need guidance for any of these steps.
Best,
Juan