Powerful conservation tech tools are gathering more data in the field than ever before. But without equally powerful and effective data management and processing tools, that data - no matter how groundbreaking or interesting - will not be able to reach its full potential for impact.
Data management can sometimes seem intimidating to conservationists, especially those just getting started in the world of conservation tech or experimenting with new data collection methods. While every community member's workflow and preferred data management and processing methods may be different, this group can serve as a resource to explore what works for others, share your own advice, and develop new strategies together.
Below are a few WILDLABS events dealing with datasets collected from various conservation tech tools:
Nicole Flores: How do I get started with Wildlife Insights?
Jamie Macaulay: How do I analyse large acoustic datasets using PAMGuard?
Sarah Davidson: Tools for Bio-logging Data in Conservation
Whatever conservation tech tools you work with, and whatever your preferred data management methods, we hope you'll find something helpful and effective in this group when you become a member!
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Wildlife conservation enthusiast, looking to gain more experience & knowledge
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- @NevilleCLS
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CLS (Collecte Localisation Satellites)
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- @Mumonkan
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Wild Me
Software Engineer for Wildlife Conservation
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- @tmcgrath
- | He / Him
Geographer, Program Manager, Engineering Manager
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Early-career movement ecologist currently working with an interdisciplinary team to develop and deploy animal-borne tracking devices with the interest of monitoring and studying the fine-scale behaviors of large carnivores, particularly in the context of human wildlife conflict
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- @frides238
- | She/her
Hi! I am Frida Ruiz, a current Mechanical Engineering undergraduate student very interested in habitat restoration & conservation. I am excited to connect with others and learn about technology applications within applied ecology & potential research opportunities
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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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Earth Blox makes dataset from Impact Observatory and Vizzuality available to Google Earth Engine developers via the #AwesomeGEECommunityCatalog
16 October 2023
We're delighted to announce that Connected Conservation Foundation and Airbus Foundation have today launched round 2 of the ‘Satellites for Biodiversity Award’.
2 October 2023
Careers
Could you be our next team member to help empower conservation through data and technology?
28 September 2023
Varaha is seeking a Geospatial Data Scientist to help design, build, and deliver a compelling spatial data science platform and develop industry leading AI models for satellite imagery.
25 September 2023
The new white paper from Rainforest Connection (RFCx) explores the power of ecoacoustics and AI to monitor biodiversity and track progress towards GBF targets using case studies from around the world.
20 September 2023
Careers
New senior position in IUCN’s Science and Data Centre. Supporting, developing and maintaining the technological foundation that underpins The IUCN Red List of Threatened species and its underlying database.
24 August 2023
Can you create an ecological data collection application on Android for Gibbon and Biodiversity Research. Check out this opportunity with us!
24 August 2023
Are you enthusiastic about leveraging your data expertise to make a positive impact on nature conservation? Apply for this exciting opportunity at the Wildlife Trust.
22 August 2023
In this Conservation Tech Showcase case study from 2022 Conservation Tech Award winner MoveApps, you’ll learn how they’re breaking new ground in animal movement research with tracking data analysis tools hosted by the...
17 August 2023
Apply to work on a wonderful team translating acoustic monitoring data into conservation & ecological insights!
11 August 2023
In this Conservation Tech Showcase case study from the Center for Conservation Innovation Philippines Inc. (CCIPH), you’ll learn how uses technology to conduct critical biodiversity assessments and empower local...
13 July 2023
We are seeking applications from promising early-career scientists and data scientists with interesting, innovative, and viable research ideas for the Future Leader Fellowship
12 July 2023
June 2024
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December 2023
event
November 2023
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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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... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Data management and processing tools, Emerging Tech, Sustainable Fishing Challenges | 1 month ago | |
Congratulations! My first hydromoth was just arrived yesterday and so excited! Looking forward for the update from your project!!! |
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Acoustics, Biologging, Climate Change, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Data management and processing tools, Emerging Tech, Open Source Solutions, Protected Area Management Tools, Sensors, Software and Mobile Apps | 1 month ago | |
Thanks, and that's a match! All these pictures are from a lab experiment and formated with AmphIdent. We took weekly belly pictures of several larvae. The aim of this google... |
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Camera Traps, Data management and processing tools, Software and Mobile Apps | 1 month 2 weeks ago | |
Hi folks!@Chelsea_Smith from Fauna & Flora joined last month's variety hour to share more about Fauna & Flora's work with... |
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Remote Sensing & GIS, Data management and processing tools, Protected Area Management Tools | 1 month 2 weeks ago | |
Can't beat Dan's list! I would just add that if you're interested in broader protected area management, platforms like EarthRanger and SMART are amazing, and can integrate... |
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Data management and processing tools, Camera Traps, Conservation Tech Training and Education | 1 month 2 weeks ago | |
First things first, our team, @jcguerra10, @hefca, and myself, is thrilled to share with immense pride... |
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Build Your Own Data Logger Community, Data management and processing tools, Sensors | 2 months 1 week ago | |
This thread is off-topic in this conversation, so happy to continue it in the other one. However, just noting - your system is one example, but not the only one - there are... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict, Data management and processing tools | 2 months 1 week ago | |
Thank you Carly, I will definitely take a look. |
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Acoustics, Biologging, Climate Change, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Data management and processing tools, Remote Sensing & GIS, Software and Mobile Apps | 2 months 2 weeks ago | |
Hello Friends,Its amazing to see the growing number of organisations working in biodiversity conservation.Biodiversity stories can have a... |
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Data management and processing tools, Software and Mobile Apps | 2 months 3 weeks ago | |
Were you ever able to solve the problem? Interestingly enough, I begin a seal bio-logging study next year! Also, you are correct. The errors were occurring during short bout... |
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Data management and processing tools | 3 months 1 week ago | |
Thank you! This is encouraging. It's also nice to know that Saul is approachable for problem-solving issues. |
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Data management and processing tools | 4 months 1 week ago | |
Am working on similar AI challenge at the moment. Hoping to translate my workflow to wolves in future if needed. We all are little overstretched but it there is no pressing... |
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Camera Traps, AI for Conservation, Build Your Own Data Logger Community, Data management and processing tools, Marine Conservation, Protected Area Management Tools, Remote Sensing & GIS | 4 months 1 week ago |
Otter video help!
5 September 2022 6:57pm
21 December 2022 7:46pm
Did you get any further with this Britnee?
26 December 2022 6:54pm
No, I was never able to figure out how to send these to anyone on here. I was hoping to learn how to clear these videos up if possible!
Job: Software Engineer at Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory
19 December 2022 7:59pm
Upcoming PAM & R Ocean Science Courses
16 December 2022 3:27pm
Join NASA’s harmful algal bloom ML challenge and win prizes!
15 December 2022 7:56pm
ONLINE TRAINING: Project Planning for Wildlife Conservation
15 December 2022 7:11pm
How could your work on data management be made easier?
14 December 2022 12:10am
Workshop Invite: Building Partnerships between Conservation Tech and the UK Space Sector
22 September 2022 3:50pm
5 December 2022 3:10pm
Hi Steph,
If it's not too late, I'm very interested in this workshop.
Best,
V
6 December 2022 5:52pm
Hey Vance! We hosted the workshop a few weeks ago, but we're doing follow up calls and future meetings. I'll loop you into the next call!
Steph
12 December 2022 12:03am
Hi Steph. Would be interested also.
Senior Software Engineer
9 December 2022 5:01pm
New: Satellites for Biodiversity Award
5 December 2022 2:08pm
Webinar: Cloud Computing for Biodiversity and Nature-Based Solutions
2 November 2022 8:09pm
Data mgmt for Passive Acoustic Monitoring best practices?
14 September 2022 8:35pm
15 September 2022 4:20pm
Hi Alex--
The first thing I'd suggest you think through is how much data you have vs how much data you are currently working on. Because if you have data from previous years that you want to ensure you're storing securely and reliably but don't need immediate access to in order to run analysis on, that opens up some options. You can compress data using lossless algorithms like FLAC, where the compression ratio varies but 50% is a pretty good margin, and then convert back to WAV if necessary for reanalysis. Compressing using MP3, OGG, AIFF, or other compression algorithms is an option that saves even more storage space but you will lose information in ways you wouldn't with FLAC--it depends on your specific needs.
I'd also recommend setting up a RAID array (RAID = "Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks"). This offers some additional security in event of a drive failure. A lot of folks who do video editing, probably the most similar use case to people working with acoustic data who also lack the institutional support of a large company or university IT department use a local NAS enclosure like https://www.qnap.com/en-us/product/ts-433 that are designed for just this purpose. Some higher initial startup costs than just buying individual USB hard drives but that does come with some perks including additional reliability and can be faster to read data depending on the exact drive specs and your local networking setup.
There are also low-cost cloud storage services like Amazon's Glacier. However, getting these set up can be a little bit tricky and they are not particularly responsive (for example, if you upload data to Glacier, it will be very safe, but getting it back if you need to use it again can take a few days depending on the dataset size).
19 September 2022 1:58am
Hello Alex,
My information might not be that helpful to you, still, our organisation have an Enterprise license of AWS cloud and we store all our media files (video, pictures, audio etc.) there. We are also using a media management solution, Piction, thru which we upload the files into the S3 bucket and in the process it also captures the file metadata (some of the metadata values needs to be entered manually). This is useful to search the files if someone wants to view or process the file later. We are soon deciding on the file storage configuration so that old files will move to cheap storage like AWS Glacier, which will take a maximum of a week time to retrieve it.
Jitendra
28 October 2022 4:19pm
Hi Alex,
I'd go much further along the lines that David @dtsavage sets out. Before jumping to implementations, better think through why you want to keep all that data, and for who? From your question, it appears you have at least three purposes:
1- for yourself to do your research
2- for others to re-use.
3- for yourself to have a back-up
For 1) you should do what works best for you.
For 3) use your organization's back-up system or whatever comes close to that
For 2 and 3) As you are indicating yourself : deposit your data at your nation's repository or zenodo.org if your nation doe not have one. It may be some documentation work ( which is what you should do anyways, right? ), but then you can stop worrying about holding on to it. Someone else is doing that for you and they do a much better job - because it is their job. Moreover, you increase the chance that other will actually become aware of all that data that you are sitting on by putting it into a repository. Who is otherwise going to find out and how that you have those disks on your desk? Lastly, depositing your data can also serve as a back-up. If you don't want to share it before you've published about it, there is likely the option of depositing under time-embargo or of depositing while requiring your consent for any re-use.
You ask how many people actually do this? You can find the answers at the repository, but I suggest that what matters most is whether you want to for your own reasons, and whether your funders, or organization's funders require it.
Shark Lab Data Analyst
24 October 2022 7:12pm
Software to aid acoustic sound files visualization/labelling + Software to syncronize video/acoustic sonograms
23 September 2022 1:01pm
8 October 2022 12:44am
I would also recommend Arbimon. It is well set up to handle Audiomoth recordings. Being cloud based, you will need a good internet connection for sound file upload. I'm just starting to investigate its use for Song Scope recordings. Setting up the call recognisers will be a slow process, but they can be made available to all users once done.
8 October 2022 7:33am
You could try using a video editor like DaVinci for looking at your video and audio together. I don't think DaVinci displays sonograms by default (just waveform) but I think it will open your selected audio in an external editor which would allow you to see the sonograms and make measurements with something like Audacity or Kaleidoscope.
20 October 2022 11:01am
The open-source program Audacity can show the spectrograms and histograms and has quite a lot of other useful features, e.g. playing ultrasound calls slower, so it can be heard by people.
GIS & Data Science Specialist, Island Conservation
14 October 2022 12:02am
Enterprise Data & Information Architect
11 October 2022 12:12pm
Data Engineer
11 October 2022 11:35am
Multi-SD card reading hubs
2 October 2022 3:46am
4 October 2022 2:04am
Good point and nice link. My USB 3.0 (errr USB 3.1 Gen 1) portable HDD gets a real read speed of 133 MBps or ~1Gbps. The theoretical max is 5 Gbps but I think the speed is limited by processor used by the HDD/USB bridge controller. Most SD card readers may be more limited even if the SD card can handle higher data rates. That may be why it could be best to just use the multi-port device from SanDisk.
7 October 2022 4:35pm
Jamie,
I have been using a 12-card Lexar Professional Workflow system for several years to process images from 24 trail cameras. The system has 4 bays, with 3 card readers per bay. I wrote software to automatically download and rename the images using metadata read from the info banner burned into the images by the camera. (Alternatively, the software can use the Exif metadata attached to the image.) The software is described in a recent Wildlife Society Bulletin:
The software is available on github:
Don't be put off by "time-lapse recordings" - it works on still images also.
Regards,
Mike Hilton
8 October 2022 12:22am
Have a look at @tessa_rhinehart 's TechTutors on scaling up acoustic surveys. This is addressed at 11 min:
The "hexadecapus" is the hardware, but transfer is automated by naming the SDCards prior to use and scripts take care of the transfer. The scripts may be written up in the audiomoth guide but the kitzes lab have this on github (although it may be mac specific)
Frontiers Symposium: Digital tools for reversing environmental degradation
5 October 2022 10:23am
Interest in an "IT for Ecologists" webinar/manual?
4 October 2022 1:24am
4 October 2022 1:42pm
Next WILDLABS virtual course?!? :)
4 October 2022 9:55pm
Agreed that this would be super useful! It definitely would have served me well in undergrad when I was trying out some AI camera trap image analysis and ended up having to build my own system from scrap pieces in a professor's gear closet, ha. Just some basic understanding of what would be required from a system for that kind of work would have saved me a lot of time and chaos. Some kind of guide or course that covers what to be thinking about depending on your data and goals would be awesome
Conservation leadership: Learning
4 October 2022 2:29pm
ONLINE COURSE: Monitoring and Evaluation for Wildlife Conservation
4 October 2022 2:04pm
ONLINE COURSE: Project Management for Wildlife Conservation
4 October 2022 2:00pm
18 Sustainability Job Opportunities at Google
3 October 2022 7:09pm
NHM develops new data platform with AWS: The Data Ecosystem
3 October 2022 6:09pm
Conservation Tech Directory - new update!
29 August 2022 2:38pm
23 September 2022 5:26pm
Congrats on the milestone Carly and Gracie!
26 September 2022 10:07pm
Thanks so much!!
Ecological Forecasting Initiative's data analysis webinar series
26 September 2022 6:50pm
Mangrove soundscape
27 August 2022 4:57pm
29 August 2022 2:47pm
You might check out the devices listed in the Conservation Tech Directory - you can search for 'acoustic recorder' or 'ARU' or something like that.
The most common off-the-shelf models (other than Frontier Labs' BARLTs mentioned above😊) are Open Acoustic Devices Audiomoths & Hydromoths (which may be particularly useful for you since they come in completely watertight cases that can be stuck underwater for deployments), Wildlife Acoustics' SongMeter series, and Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Swift units.
30 August 2022 10:10pm
Camilo--
Are you interested only in airborne sounds or do you want to deploy hydrophones? That decision would inform a lot of other decisions about your purchase of equipment, as would having a clearer picture of your budget.
23 September 2022 5:39pm
Hi there Camilo,
What an interesting project! If you are looking for a lower cost, but effective tools for acoustic monitoring you might want to look into two options:
SoundTraps - are very commonly used and perform quite well:
FrontPage
Welcome to the cutting edge of underwater acoustic recording technology. SoundTrap hydrophones combine the latest low power electronics with meticulously crafted software to create instruments that perform in a league of their own. Check them out here…
SonarPoints - these are also a great instrument option:
page/sonarpoint | Desert Star Systems
The SonarPoint system is the third generation of Desert Stars passive underwater acoustics monitoring toolkits.
Desert Star SystemsThe planet matters. People matter. Location matters.
23 September 2022 12:16pm
7 September 2022 6:12pm
Thank you for the response! I'm not sure how to find that out. It says MP4. Is that what you're looking for?