Human-wildlife conflict is a shockingly common problem, often with enormous consequences for both individual animals and entire populations.
When human-wildlife conflict comes to mind, you may immediately think of wildlife crime instead - which isn't wrong, since many regions with wildlife crime problems like poaching are also areas where people may frequently deal with human-wildlife conflict, causing the two issues to go hand-in-hand. But human-wildlife conflict is a much broader issue encompassing many ways that human presence and interference can cause problems for us and animals alike. Human-wildlife conflict includes:
- Elephants trampling a farmer's crops, resulting in retaliation
- New real estate developments infringing on ecosystems where predator species live, leading to predators having less territory and less food, which in turn leads to predators attacking domestic animals and livestock
- Freeways dividing the territory of animals like mountain lions, leading to wildlife venturing into neighborhoods or being killed by cars
- Lead bullets used in hunting causing scavengers like condors to die of lead poisoning
These are just a few examples of how humans can negatively impact wildlife, and it's clear to see how many of these scenarios could escalate. Human-wildlife conflict solutions don't just include ways in which we can prevent these issues (for example, through tracking predators, monitoring populations' territories, or building barriers and wildlife crossings monitored by sensors), but also the ways in which we can help people connect with wildlife and care about learning to live alongside them.
If you're interested in solutions that can prevent human-wildlife conflict, join this group and get to know the people who are working to protect and save species around the world!
Header image: Casey Allen on Unsplash
- @Rob_Appleby
- | He/him
Wild Spy
Whilst I love everything about WILDLABS and the conservation tech community I am mostly here for the badges!!
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2023 Bachelor Degree Graduate from the College of African Wildlife Management, Mweka.
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Director of Icoteq Ltd, an electronics and software design consultancy developing wireless products and solutions to organisations working in the conservation, wildlife monitoring and anti-poaching sectors. Developers of the TagRanger® novel wildlife tracking products.
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- @ahmedjunaid
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Zoologist, Ecologist, Conservation Biologist
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FruitPunch AI
CTO and Founder of FruitPunch AI
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Artificial Intelligence and Environmental Science Researcher
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Saint Louis Zoo
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University of Adelaide
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Bay Area Older Adults
California Naturalist with Felidae and CDFW
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WildLabs will soon launch a 'Funding and Finance' group. What would be your wish list for such a group? Would you be interested in co-managing or otherwise helping out?
5 June 2024
Now accepting applications for two $15,000 grants to help protect wildlife through cutting-edge, technology-driven efforts
3 June 2024
The IEF's Elephant Conservation and Research Funding Support Program has opened a call for applications. Average grant size is $15K, whereas the IEF funds 20 to 25 projects per year.
22 May 2024
Do you have photos and videos of your conservation tech work? We want to include them in a conservation technology showcase video
17 May 2024
Article
Read in detail about how to use The Inventory, our new living directory of conservation technology tools, organisations, and R&D projects.
1 May 2024
Article
The Inventory is your one-stop shop for conservation technology tools, organisations, and R&D projects. Start contributing to it now!
1 May 2024
Technology to End the Sixth Mass Extinction. Salary: $132 - $160k; Location: Seattle WA; 7+ years of experience in hardware product development and manufacturing; View post for full job description
1 May 2024
Article
What better way to conclude InConversation Season 1: East Africa than by delving into the exciting yet complex world of #tech4wildlife innovation across the region. This episode is going to be double the insight and...
30 April 2024
The primary focus of the research is to explore how red deer movements, space use, habitat selection and foraging behaviour change during the wolf recolonization process.
10 February 2024
Article
An update on @Alasdair and @adanger24's HWC project
11 January 2024
Listen in on our interview with human-predator conflict expert, Gabi Fleury and gain a deeper understanding of the importance of holistic, ethical and community-led approaches to developing tech solutions for...
8 December 2023
TagRanger® is a state-of-the-art wildlife finding, monitoring and tracking solution for research, conservation and environmental professionals. With superior configurability for logging data, reporting location and...
23 November 2023
October 2024
December 2023
event
19 Products
2 R&D Projects
29 Organisations
Recently updated products
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Recently updated organisations
Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Hi David - have you seen this opportunity? It may be a good one to apply to for support (the Darwin Initiative). |
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AI for Conservation, Drones, Emerging Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Wildlife Crime | 3 days 10 hours ago | |
Hey @FleuryGS :)Bright Frog Game Studios is producing some really cool environmental education video games that more people should know about! I've gone ahead and added it as an... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict | 3 weeks 2 days ago | |
Thank you Robyn. Sure I will send more information to your email |
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Citizen Science, Acoustics, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Human-Wildlife Conflict | 1 month 1 week ago | |
Totally agree.Inititally sceptical until I saw Helena and Graeme were involved.MJ |
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Acoustics, Citizen Science, Community Base, Human-Wildlife Conflict | 1 month 2 weeks ago | |
Hi @Henrikcox I hope you are well. I am not sure if you may remember myself and my colleague from CLS. We had a meeting and met in-person at Earthranger last year. ... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict, Sensors | 2 months 1 week ago | |
Great to know Lars! Let's stay in touch on this, would love to join the testing out there.Cheers,Henrik |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict | 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 | |
Hello community, I wanted to share some exciting updates about my ongoing conservation project for endangered species. I post this here... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict, Early Career | 2 months 3 weeks ago | |
Hi Rokshana,Maybe you can try this product from India called ANIDERS - I think this product would help you a lot. This is their website - |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict, East Africa Community | 2 months 4 weeks ago | |
Perfect thanks! I am still a novice using Python but my wife can help me! |
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AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Human-Wildlife Conflict | 3 months 2 weeks ago | |
@PaulAllin Thanks for your valuable insights. Zenmuse H20N seems to be very powerful and useful in this case. However, I'm looking for a more affordable option for a self-funded... |
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Drones, Human-Wildlife Conflict | 3 months 2 weeks ago | |
Hi Amit,The most important thing is that the livestock owners contact you as soon as possible after finding the carcass. We commonly do two things if they contact us on the same... |
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Camera Traps, AI for Conservation, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Early Career, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Protected Area Management Tools | 4 months ago |
Born Free Uses Smart Maps to Save Lions, Solve Human-Wildlife Conflict
17 August 2023 2:35pm
Location intelligence helps Born Free Kenya understand where communities and lions are in conflict. Outreach to fortify cattle corrals is guided by smart maps and spatial analysis.
Human-Elephant Conflict Tech Solution in Tsavo: NdovuCare
7 August 2023 1:36pm
9 May 2024 1:56pm
15 May 2024 9:34am
What Technologies are you using to Mitigate Human-Wildlife Conflict across East Africa?
1 August 2023 8:29am
Interested in being part of the Enduata Emaa CBO's Green Planet Ambassadors Project in Amboseli?
5 July 2023 10:28am
25 July 2023 1:14pm
@richardturere Hello :) and a warm welcome to WILDLABS! Here is the link to @Lekato Samuel Lekato - Founder and Chairman, Enduata Emaa CBO. Sam is interested in conservation technology focused on how to keep wild animals away from community homesteads in Amboseli and I reckon your Lion Lights could help. I'll let you two take on the conversation from here. Thanks!
Human/animal detection/alerting
20 June 2023 12:07pm
30 June 2023 12:53pm
Hi Kim!
Welcome to Wildlabs!
This looks like an amazing project! I see multiple uses for our ecosystem monitoring in Greenland - both for the research/monitoring part but also for safety - polar bears roaming around camp!
I will look into your github and may get back to you!
Cheers,
Lars
21 July 2023 9:57am
Super, nice to hear. BTW, this project appears new, but it's been in operation b yseveral parties for more than 10 years, so it's mature.
No one is playing with it yet as I only just released it to open source last year. However, it was evolved since 2008 and the main state machine was almost the same as it is now in 2011. I added the the AI computer vision in 2019.
I believe it has a lot of features that make it practical to use, particularly as I'm using the best available object detectors for example, but also they way I make the state control very flexible. Just waiting for some people to try it :)
BTW, I've been adding support for the latest Orin Jetson series SBCs but still have to come back to finishing this release off. I've been somewhat distracted with my audio localization project which I want to finish to the point of releasing and and writing it up before finishing the Jetson Orin release of the security project.
pneumatic artificial muscle applications in conservation tech?
5 July 2023 6:59pm
"FISH BANK PROGRAM"(Transforming fishing cat and fish farmer conflict into conservation)
21 June 2023 2:15pm
22 June 2023 12:57pm
Beautiful solution!
22 June 2023 4:42pm
Thank you
Automated Elephant-detection system
27 October 2016 10:14pm
12 June 2020 5:53am
Hi,
This is rakesh kalva from India. I have been working on human-elephant conflict in the state of Andhra Pradesh for the past 5 years. This is a cool idea. I have used camera traps to identify movement and individual elephants for demographic data.
Some field based observations of using camera traps for elephants:
1. I usually place the camera traps on forest paths and many of the images we captured wernt of the complete elephant. Its just the legs and trunk. Wont that effect the detection by the software as to wether its an elephant or not?
2. In case of flash cameras , quite a lot of our cameras got damaged by elephants. So we were going for IR cameras. WIll it work for IR cameras as well?
3. Another issue is with the cameras being stolen by locals or poachers.
4. So we gave up all this and are using a simple trip technology with a switch attached to a door bell attached to a rope placed at a height of 7-8 feet. In this landscape no other animal is at this heigh so when the alarm is triggered we know its an elephant.
5. Elephants operate in a large territor, so will it be feasable to use this technology?
But there are some interesting research questions that can be answered with this technology you are developing. Kindly let me know if i can be of any help on field.
Regards,
Rakesh Kalva
Wildlife Biologist
18 May 2022 3:48am
Hi Neil,
I am a project manager for Zoological Society of London's Thailand Programme. We work in the southern Western Forest Complex of Thailand, which is a large landscape of relatively contiguous forest surrounded by development and agriculture and thus rife with human-elephant conflict. We are currently looking to co-develop or pilot low-cost cameras or acoustic sensors for real-time detection of elephants at HEC hotspots within the landscape. Current issues we've been facing are high rates of non-target stimuli triggers which clog up the cloud (so the automated classification of elephants would be useful to limit notifications) and the high cost of conventional cellular camera systems. I am curious to know the current status of your Elephant AI system. The most recent update I've found on your hackaday is of the combination with a deterrence system, which is very promising. Feel free to email me at [email protected] or reply to this message.
Cheers,
Juliana
20 June 2023 1:32pm
What's the definition of low cost really? Using various cnn models for objection detection the results can be very accurate. The costs would vary. The cheapest Jetson Nano (Old model) is about 150 euros but case, SSD and camera and it can run yolov4 full model, 416x416 image size.
However, if you go the next step, the jetson Nano orin, then you start about 500-700 euros for the board, but the model can run a full size yolov6 model which is extremely good. Elephants are so unique looking, you could likely eliminate all false positives.
You would need to attach cellular modems or something like that I expect but these sound like a different thing to a cellular camera system that you mention and thus likely a lot cheaper.
The Jetson SBC's do use quite a lot of power.
Information Session: Technology Testing to Mitigate Human-Elephant Conflict in West Bengal
19 June 2023 11:07pm
Innovation wanted: Technology Testing to Mitigate Human-Elephant Conflict in West Bengal
19 June 2023 10:54pm
The Wildlife Society Conference
19 June 2023 5:59am
Big Life Foundation: Improving Connectivity to Fight Wildlife Crime
8 June 2023 10:00am
How lights help keep lions and livestock alive in Kenya
31 May 2023 3:31pm
Richard Turere from Kitengela, invents flashing lights to mitigate human wildlife conflict. He came up with “Lion Lights,” a system that deters predators such as lions from attacking livestock using flashing lights. Operating predominantly on solar energy, with the ability to harness wind power during cloudy weather or low sunlight, Turere’s invention provides a sustainable eco-friendly approach to conservation.
Deadline Approaching: Conservation Tech Award
15 May 2023 10:21pm
[Recordings Now Available!) EarthRanger User Conference
27 April 2023 5:52am
Looking to contribute
27 April 2023 2:41am
Video: Virginia Tech tracking bobcats to preserve wildlife
26 April 2023 2:45pm
Quick feature of Virgina Tech project using camera traps and biologgers to track bobcats, collecting data to inform human-wildlife coexistance efforts
The 59th Annual Meeting of Illinois Chapter of The Wildlife Society
12 April 2023 5:24am
Rhino horns in medicine
2 April 2023 2:22pm
Using acoustic monitoring to track infectious disease risk
8 March 2023 1:29pm
Moveapps: EMAC23 Coding Challenge
3 March 2023 7:58am
3 March 2023 3:12pm
Super initiative! I hope you get a lot of entries to this coding challenge!
6 March 2023 7:53am
Thanks Lars! Look forward to any entries from you and your colleagues. If you have an questions or suggestions, let me know.
6 March 2023 1:11pm
Hi Andrea! Although I am a keen user and observer of the Moveapps initiative, my R or Python coding skills are next to non- existing. I am therefore not likely to be contributing this time... Some day perhaps ;)
Moveapps EMAC23 Coding Challenge – Participate now!
3 March 2023 7:45am
Climate crisis drives a rise in human-wildlife conflicts
1 March 2023 10:51pm
New article about how climate change and human-wildlife conflict go hand-in-hand. Would be interesting to hear from our climate change and HWC groups about how climate scientists and community members who are innovating HWC tech solutions could work together collaboratively to understand and address this growing problem.
“Smelly” Elephant Repellent
24 February 2023 8:54am
Mobilising East African nature restoration professionals
21 February 2023 3:57pm
Texas Chapter of The Wildlife Society’s Annual Meeting 2023
20 February 2023 10:56pm
Hiring Full Stack Developer at Conservation X Labs
10 February 2023 5:35pm
Call for Proposals: 'Can Technology Save Biodiversity?'
10 February 2023 10:31am
Consultancy opportunity: Wildlife monitoring specialist
31 January 2023 11:26am
AI for Forest Elephants Challenge
25 January 2023 3:34pm
30 April 2024 12:48am