WILDLABS logo

WILDLABS logo

Group

AI for Conservation / Feed

Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used in the field to analyse information collected by wildlife conservationists, from camera trap and satellite images to audio recordings. AI can learn how to identify which photos out of thousands contain rare species; or pinpoint an animal call out of hours of field recordings - hugely reducing the manual labour required to collect vital conservation data.

discussion

Hydromoth for coastal & offshore surveying

Sol Milne

16 November 2023 7:36am

Hi all! I'm interested in deploying a Hydromoth on an Uncrewed Surface Vehicle (USV) to collect acoustic data for biodiversity analysis, for coastal and offshore marine surveys....

3 0
Harold Tay

18 November 2023 1:47am

Hi Sol,

I think your concern is well placed.  The pros typically tow an array of hydrophones, in its simpler configuration it looks like a long fat rubber hose containing maybe a dozen transducers feeding their electrical signals to a recording unit back on the ship.  All this is done to reduce noise from the ship, from waves crashing, and flow noise.  The multiple transducers can also be electronically tuned to be directional so that it can be "pointed" away from a noise source (like the ship).

In your position, I would just try the simplest thing that could work, then fix the problems as they arise.  It could be you may need to be dead in the water while recording.  To address surface noise (slapping waves, wind), you could mount the hydromoth low down on a spar buoy, which you tow into position.

 

Best of luck, it sounds like an interesting project (c:

Jamie Macaulay

19 December 2023 2:20pm

Hydromoths are great for the price but they do not have the most streamlined housing and audio quality won't be as good as something like a SoundTrap or really any recorder with a proper hydrophone and 16-bit +DAQ system.

If you can afford it, this is an excellent SoundTrap based towed autonomous system NOAA have been using. It might work towed behind an autonomous vehicle

Alternatively, if you can have something inside the vehicle, a simple tape recorder (e.g. Tascam DR40X) and hydrophone on cable  will provide excellent sound quality. You could also use something like a Raspberry Pi with audio focussed ADC hat to record but that would require a bit more programming. Even consider a standard AudioMoth and plug a proper hydrophone into the audio jack - this would still have a 12-bit ADC but would provide better sound quality than a hydromoth (hydrophones are more omnidirectional and there's no air filled causing reflections and attenuation)

Kim Hendrikse

20 December 2023 6:57am

If you are considering an external microphone and a towed system, then you would also be in a position to consider a raspberry pi with an external microphone with sbts-aru. Another option:



 

See full post
discussion

Is anyone or platform supporting ML for camera trap video processing (id-ing jaguar)? 

Stephanie O'Donnell

27 November 2023 10:49am

Hi wildlabbers, I have another colleague looking for support for getting started using AI for processing videos coming out of their camera traps - specifically for species ID...

9 0
Sam Prada

7 December 2023 12:42pm

Hey there community! Im new here and looking after lots of answers too! ;-)

We are searching aswell for the most ideal App / AI technology to ID different cats, but also other mammals if possible 

- Panthera onca

- Leopardus wiedii

- Leopardus pardalis

 

and if possible:

 

- Puma concolor

- Puma yagouaroundi

- Leopardus colocolo

- Tapirus terrestris

 

Every recommendation is very welcome, thanks!

Sam

See full post
discussion

Instant Detect 2.0 and related cost

Kaarthika Chandran

16 November 2023 12:50am

I am doing a research project on rhino poaching at Kruger National Park. I was impressed with the idea of Instant Detect 2.0. I do not know the cost involved with installing that...

3 0
Sam Seccombe

16 November 2023 10:55am

Hi Kaarthika, hi all,

ZSL's Instant Detect 2.0 is currently undergoing Beta testing with external partners and so is still pre-production. We therefore do not have final pricing for the system. 

Saying this, we have got a manufacturing partner fully set-up who has already completed two full build rounds of the system, one in 2020 and another in 2023. This means we actually have a very good idea of the system's build costs and what these are likely to be when we can manufacture the system in volume.

While I cannot release this pricing yet, I am confident that we will have an unparalleled proposition.

In particular, the satellite airtime package we can supply to conservationists due to the generosity of the Iridium Satellite Company means that each system can send 3,600 (25-50KB) images a month from anywhere in the world for a single fixed fee. This equates to around a 97% discount to the normal commercial rates. 

We are currently very busy fundraising so that we can make this final step to scale the system. 

If we can secure this funding, we hope to go into volume production by mid-2024.

Best wishes,

Sam

See full post
discussion

DeepFaune: a software for AI-based identification of mammals in camera-trap pictures and videos

Simon Chamaillé-Jammes

14 July 2023 3:14pm

Hello everyone, just wanted to advertise here the DeepFaune initiative that I lead with Vincent Miele. We're building AI-based species recognition models for camera-trap...

6 4
German Forero

24 October 2023 8:46pm

Hello to all, new to this group. This is very exciting technology. can it work for ID of individual animals? we are interested in Ai for identifying individual jaguars (spots) and andean Bears (face characteristics). Any recommendation? contact? thanks!

German

Kim Hendrikse

25 October 2023 8:57am

That's a very interesting question and use case (I'm not from deepfaune). I'm playing with this at the moment and intend to integrate it into my other security software that can capture and send video alerts. I should have this working within a few weeks I think.

The structure of that software is that it is two stage, the first stage identifies that there is an animal and it's bounding box and then there's a classification stage. I intend to merge the two stages so that it behaves like a yolo model so that the output is bounding boxes as well as what type of animal it is.

However, my security software can cascade models. So if you were able to train a single stage classifier that identifies your particular bears, then you could cascade all of these models in my software to generate an alert with a video saying which bear it was.

Ed Miller

4 November 2023 4:51am

Hi @GermanFore ,

I work with the BearID Project on individual identification of brown bears from faces. More recently we worked on face detection across all bear species and ran some tests with identifying Andean bears. You can find details in the paper I linked below. We plan to do more work with Andean bears in 2024.

I would love to connect with you. I'll send you a message with my email address.

Regards,

Ed

See full post
event

A SPOTLIGHT ON CUTTING-EDGE BIOMONITORING TECHNOLOGIES

Thomas Luypaert

31 October 2023 9:09am

Join us in our session to feature the latest developments and applications in groundbreaking biomonitoring tech in the tropics

2 4
ANDREA VARELA

15 November 2023 6:10pm

Hello!The Galápagos Islands can be considered Tropics? We do drone monitoring of the marine iguanas with the project Iguanas from Above :)Thanks.Andrea Varela
See full post
careers

Acoustic Monitoring Specialist

Mandy Holmgren

26 October 2023 7:32pm

The Institute for Bird Populations (IBP) seeks a California-based acoustic monitoring specialist to collect, manage, and process avian acoustic data from multiple research and conservation projects across California...

0
See full post