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!
- @tmcgrath
- | He / Him
Geographer, Program Manager, Engineering Manager
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Dzanga-Ndoki national park biodiversity monitoring
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- @derekrisch
- | He/Him
I'm a conservation ecologist working on invasive mammalian species. Use a variety of monitoring methods which provide an enormous amount of data (yay!) but require a lot of effort to process (nay!). Love keeping up to date on newest tech.
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World Wide Fund for Nature/ World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
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- @cleo
- | She/Her
Southern African Wildlife College
I am ecologist working in African conservation areas who loves wildlife & wild landscapes. I increasingly recognize that conservation is about people, especially those living in & around protected areas. Finding ways to benefit marginalized people is my passion.
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Technologist, birder, photographer and mountain guide.
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- @vandita_shukla
- | she/her
PhD candidate studying drone flight planning for enabling tracking and identification of individual characteristics of wildlife; member of the WildDrone, an MSCA Doctoral Network funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Chuck's Python for Everyone course is available these days at www.py4e.com, and he's also created a course called Web Apps for Everyone www.wa4e.com. Both... |
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AI for Conservation | 4 years 6 months ago | |
Hi all! This is a great article summarizing new applications for AI for conservation, and highlights @vsahai 's work with... |
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AI for Conservation | 4 years 9 months ago | |
Wild Me (wildme.org) is looking to retain a UI/UX Machine Learning Engineer to help translate advanced ML into beautiful interfaces... |
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AI for Conservation | 4 years 10 months ago | |
Wild Me (wildme.org) is looking to hire a second, Masters or PhD-level Senior Computer Vision Engineer to focus on individual ID of... |
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AI for Conservation | 4 years 10 months ago | |
Hi, I would just like to introduce our Project BEESWAX7 and announce that today we acheived two milestones for success; we recorded bee... |
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AI for Conservation | 4 years 10 months ago | |
There's a discussion over in camera traps about the design of a device to run autonomously (in an inaccessible location) with reliable... |
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AI for Conservation | 4 years 11 months ago | |
I got to help TNC launch fishnet.ai over the weekend, a home for training data for fisheries monitoring & computer vision AI. We have a... |
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AI for Conservation | 4 years 11 months ago | |
Please consider submitting to this workshop and/or challenge which may be relevant to your work: Call for Papers and Call... |
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AI for Conservation | 4 years 11 months ago | |
yep! Drop me an email at [email protected] and I'll get you a link. Steph |
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AI for Conservation | 4 years 11 months ago | |
Artificial intelligence & Machine Learning Algorithms are transforming data analysis, but little is known about how they... |
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AI for Conservation | 5 years 2 months ago | |
Hi Colin, At the BearID Project, we are working on a similar problem for brown bears. We are currently using machine learning methods developed for human facial recognition (... |
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AI for Conservation | 5 years 3 months ago | |
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New paper - 'soundClass: An automatic sound classification tool for biodiversity monitoring using machine learning'
1 September 2022 8:53pm
Silva et al -
- R package to train convolutional neural networks & employ them to classify sounds
- sound event classification pipeline, from annotating recordings to automating
trained networks
- case studies with bat & whale echolocation calls, bird songs
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Hi folks! I built out a human-in-the-loop annotation platform for Felidae Conservation Fund, a SF-Bay Area nonprofit last Fall using MegaDetector. I'm looking for feedback from this amazing community around areas of collaboration, especially data/software resources we can share!
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'The danger is that the promises of digital technology can blind us to its less-recognized contributions to climate woes. Emissions from the ICT sector already rival those of the airline industry. Moreover, the few studies done so far (a,b,c) suggest the ICT sector’s emissions will at least double to 2-3 GTCO2e and if the rise in global GHG emissions is limited to 1.5˚C by 2030, contribute approximately 10% of the global GHG burden — nearly equal to that of the automotive industry. And these are cautious estimates.'
Can deep learning identify seabirds? (species, within-species, individual)
25 May 2022 8:24pm
21 June 2022 4:55pm
Update: I asked the same question on twitter so I'm sharing answers I got there:
With quality photos and good labeled training data, I would say definitely doable! @ultralytics and their #YOLOv5 models would be a cool place to start!
— Abram B. Fleishman (@abfleishman) May 26, 2022
Let's chat! We've been training models to run on trail cameras as images/videos are captured, and have worked on migratory birds along coastlines (more info: https://t.co/NzW4GO2Wqp)
— Henrik Cox (@henrik_cox) June 1, 2022
Have a look at this paper:https://t.co/pmvrmvJAuS
— Damien R. Farine (@DamienFarine) May 27, 2022
Individual identification needs tens of pictures per individual of known individuals as training data, which will be the challenge here.
Absolutely feasible, to learn how to train a CNN to identify species from satellite images I did a few tutorials on ID species from photographs. With the right training dataset it should be fairly straightforward. For individuals? Easier on species with clear markers (fins).
— Samanta's Wildlife (@SamantaWildlife) May 27, 2022
21 June 2022 5:41pm
Hi Yvan,
I dropped this into the AI for Conservation slack group as well, you got this reply this morning:
Steph
8 August 2022 11:12am
Hi Yvan,
If you find something which reaches your expectation and especially the ability to identify individual with plumage patterns I will be intereted.
In the same idea that Ultralytics, there is :
Which could probably answer your first and second requirements.
And find here a great website showing all the IA-based camera software, you may find solutions or contact throw this list:
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Identify animal from Image
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2 August 2022 2:54am
Hi Jitendra.
If they are still images, many people are using Megadetector to analyze their images. I'm not sure how it will do in species classification, but it can tell you if there are images of interest in the shots. Others here can probably give you more detailed instructions on how to use it to batch process camera trap images.
2 August 2022 10:24am
Have you considered creating a Kaggle competition? If you already have lots of images, and some that have been labelled, then this could be a good way to get people working on a solution
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Hello there
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