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
Smart Parks
Founder of Smart Parks - www.smartparks.org / Founder of OpenCollar - https://opencollar.io
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- @samarmstrong
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International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
Invasive species/law enforcement/project management/Asia/Australia
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- @brittanypalmer
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Entrepreneur and environmental attorney with a passion for wildlife conservation.
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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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- @tobiaspetri
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data scientist/algorithmic dev - caught fire for movement ecology
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Natural Solutions
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Freaklabs
I'm an engineer and product designer working on wildlife conservation technology.
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I'm a software developer. I have open source projects in practical object detection and alerting that is well suited for poacher detection and a Raspberry Pi based sound localizing ARU project
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Conservation Biologist; Research interest Human Dimensions on Wildlife Conservation and Conservation Tech
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An environmentalist and biologist who has been working to inspire and prepare the next generation of conservationists through an inclusive and engaging learning environment.
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GreenLab
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Wildlife Ecologist
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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...
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The illegal wildlife trade varies widely regarding species and geographical variance, necessitating niche and tailored research. Against this background, this study on elephant poaching in Tanzania was conducted at the...
30 October 2023
Careers
The Institute of Zoology (IoZ), the research division of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), is seeking to fill three new permanent positions by recruiting outstanding early-career researchers as Research Fellows (...
20 October 2023
Listen in on our interview with Mara Elephant Project’s Tracking Manager, Wilson Sairowua, as he explains how MEP is using software, geofencing and drone technologies to resolve human-elephant conflict across Maasai...
20 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
Article
Five #tech4wildlife people, projects and updates that caught our attention this month. An AI supported bear early warning system, a project that's connecting indigenous communities with high speed internet, exploring...
12 September 2023
The WCS team in Uganda is working with impacted communities, district leaders and wildlife authorities to come up with innovative solutions to Human Wildlife Conflicts and curb wildlife crimes in our time. Check out...
5 September 2023
Read our interview with Sandra Maryanne, a young conservation tech innovator raised in Taita, Ivarenyi with first-hand experience on the challenges of human-elephant conflict within her community. To address this, she...
7 August 2023
Human-Wildlife Conflict is a pressing conservation challenge affecting natural ecosystems, biodiversity and local communities across East Africa. This has led to the development and adoption of diverse conservation...
1 August 2023
JICA, Japan’s International Cooperation Agency is seeking a digital partner with a proven track record in conservation technology as we launch a pilot project to test technologies to mitigate human-elephant conflict in...
19 June 2023
In this Conservation Tech Showcase case study from Big Life Foundation, you’ll learn about their successes using EarthRanger and LoRaWAN Smart Parks Solution technologies to monitor wildlife in East Africa.
8 June 2023
Are you using or creating tech to protect wildlife? We want to support your organization through two $15,000 grants!
15 May 2023
December 2023
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November 2023
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Hello Sam,What would you say would be the estimate cost was for the first version Instant Detect 1.0 ? That might help my research ? |
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AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Sensors | 1 week 6 days ago | |
My email address: [email protected] |
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Community Base, Conservation Dogs, Early Career, East Africa Community, Ending Wildlife Trafficking Online, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Wildlife Crime | 3 weeks 3 days ago | |
Hi Antoine, Sorry about the late reply. The field trials were abandoned mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We're planning to improve our prototype and conduct field trials... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict | 4 weeks 2 days ago | |
Hey Stephanie,Thanks a lot! Sorry I missed your message but of course I can ask our users about their experience with sensors! |
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Biologging, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Marine Conservation, Protected Area Management Tools | 1 month 2 weeks ago | |
Ah really nice!And thanks for reaching out. I'd be very much interested in catching up. With your background in yolov8 I'm sure that we could integrate deepfaune into the project... |
+11
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Human-Wildlife Conflict | 1 month 3 weeks ago | |
We have the the FLIR FC series (FC 618) thermal cameras setup. with regards to the connection between the cameras and monitoring station, this through fiber cable and microwave... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict, Camera Traps, Sensors | 1 month 3 weeks ago | |
@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... |
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Citizen Science, Climate Change, Community Base, Connectivity, Conservation Tech Training and Education, East Africa Community, Human-Wildlife Conflict | 4 months ago | |
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... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict | 4 months 1 week ago | |
Hi all! I am a mechanical engineer working in the Aerospace Engineering department at a University, and I have the opportunity to take over... |
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Emerging Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Marine Conservation, Open Source Solutions, Sensors | 4 months 3 weeks ago | |
Thank you |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict | 5 months 1 week ago | |
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... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict | 5 months 1 week ago | |
Hi WildLabs,ZSL is looking for Beta testers for Instant Detect 2.0. If you are a conservationist, scientist or wildlife ranger with... |
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Camera Traps, Climate Change, Community Base, Connectivity, Emerging Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Sensors, Wildlife Crime | 6 months 2 weeks ago |
ICOTEQ launch TAGRANGER® system of products
23 November 2023 1:25pm
AWMS Conference 2023
Instant Detect 2.0 and related cost
16 November 2023 12:50am
16 November 2023 2:12pm
Thank You for your valuable update Sam
16 November 2023 2:30pm
Hello Sam,
What would you say would be the estimate cost was for the first version Instant Detect 1.0 ? That might help my research ?
Insight; a secure online platform designed for sharing experiences of conservation tool use.
7 November 2023 1:01pm
A secure platform designed for those working to monitor & protect natural resources. Insight facilitates sharing experience, knowledge & tools to increase efficiency & effectiveness in conservation. By sharing we reduce time & money spent to find, test, & implement solutions.
Master Project Collaboration/Ideas!
4 November 2023 10:37pm
4 November 2023 10:58pm
My email address: [email protected]
How 400km solar-powered fence reduces human-wildlife conflict - The Standard
31 October 2023 7:35am
An electric, solar-powered fence erected by the Rhino Ark Charitable Trust partnering with the Kenya Wildlife Service completed in 2009 evolved into the longest conservation barrier that safeguards vital forests in the Aberdare Conservation Area fostering peaceful coexistence.
A Market Reduction Approach to Illegal Ivory Markets in Tanzania
30 October 2023 7:41am
Seismic detectors
20 December 2015 1:10pm
31 August 2018 2:51pm
Hi Nilaksha,
Congratulations! That is great news! Please do keep us posted on how it goes and do let us know if you need varied field sites in which to test the tools. @Teun , how's your prototype coming along?
Best,
Nilanga
30 March 2021 6:01pm
Dear all, any update on this subject?
All the best.
29 October 2023 6:39pm
Hi Antoine,
Sorry about the late reply. The field trials were abandoned mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We're planning to improve our prototype and conduct field trials in this December. I'll post an update here.
regards
Horizon call for EU Human-Wildlife conflict experts
23 October 2023 10:34am
Hi,
I represent a consortium (CRO/FI/DE) which plans to apply to the call in the link:
HORIZON-CL6-2024-FARM2FORK-01-1
Agro-pastoral/outdoor livestock systems and wildlife management
If you have a research idea in the scope of this call please do not hesitate to contact me.
ZSL Research Fellow (x3 roles)

20 October 2023 3:34pm
Restoring the Mara Elephant Population Using Coexistence Tech Solutions with Mara Elephant Project's Wilson Sairowua

20 October 2023 1:31pm
What Biologgers are you using?
30 August 2023 10:44am
7 September 2023 10:57am
Interesting. interesting. I'm probably jumping the gun here but I'm curious - are you getting any trends on types of biologgers or specific manufacturers people are talking about? Or is everyone using different tags/manufacturers?
7 September 2023 11:00am
Ah! It's great to find out about your tags - great video, thanks for sharing. We'd love to hear from some of your users about their experiences with your tags! Would you be able to share the poll with your user community?
12 October 2023 12:24pm
Hey Stephanie,
Thanks a lot! Sorry I missed your message but of course I can ask our users about their experience with sensors!
Ai monitoring of wolves in the Netherlands
7 September 2023 9:45am
22 September 2023 12:28pm
That's cool, that looks to be a yolov8 based model with a python interface. This means that in theory it should be not so hard (Within a day) to make a websocket wrapper around it and then it can be easily integrated into my state management and alerting system.
I'll take a look at that this weekend
6 October 2023 9:05am
Hi @kimhendrikse, interesting stuff! I'm currently working on a detection system for desert lions in Namibia. Not exactly the same as it will analyse images afterwards on a local machine instead of in real time, but still. For this I use MegaDetector to detect the animals and a yolov8 classifier to further classify them into lion or non-lion (just like the deepfaune project).
If you're looking for camera trap images of wolves, LILA BC has around 5500 images classified as wolf (Canis lupus, shots taken from North America). If you want to include domestic dog, they have more than 10k images available (Canis familiaris, shots taken from various places on earth). Usually, If I need training data I run MegaDetector over these LILA BC images with a high threshold (±0.7) and square crop them. That should give you quite some training data to train a wolf/dog classifier. MegaDetector is also really good in detecting people, so you would get that for free.
Anyway, I live in Utrecht and would love to be involved in this project. Maybe get in touch and meet? [email protected]
6 October 2023 2:23pm
Ah really nice!
And thanks for reaching out. I'd be very much interested in catching up. With your background in yolov8 I'm sure that we could integrate deepfaune into the project within a day. And you can tell me about the image training you are involved with. I'll PM you.
Thermal cameras for monitoring visitors in highly vulnerable conservation areas
21 June 2022 3:44pm
20 June 2023 12:57pm
Hi,
I have been involved in people detection tech for more than 10 years and have an open source project that uses CNN computer vision for object detection and alerting, including people (
GitHub - hcfman/sbts-install: Installs StalkedByTheState over the sbts-base system to build a home and business security appliance on NVIDIA Jetson series computers.
Installs StalkedByTheState over the sbts-base system to build a home and business security appliance on NVIDIA Jetson series computers. - GitHub - hcfman/sbts-install: Installs StalkedByTheState ov...

I also have several thermal cameras here. note, the people detection can also work fine on thermal images. Mostly I've stopped using thermal cameras because normal cameras work so well with modern models that they no longer have an advantage perse. If you really need to detect people in pitch darkness though, using a thermal camera in combination with image detection would be better than just thermal movement detection.
Let me know if I can help in any way. I know this is quite an old post though.
22 September 2023 12:00pm
I would be interested how you setted up this system. Which model do yu use and how are they connected?
6 October 2023 12:27pm
We have the the FLIR FC series (FC 618) thermal cameras setup. with regards to the connection between the cameras and monitoring station, this through fiber cable and microwave radio links.
🚀 New Grant: 'Satellites for Biodiversity Award' Round 2
2 October 2023 1:50pm
Human - Non-human Primate Conflict Mitigation Approaches: Lessons from Olive Baboons - YouTube
26 September 2023 12:11pm
Hear about the ways Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project (UNBP) works with Laikipia's local communities to improve relationships between humans and baboons through this talk by Co-Director - Dr. Corinna Most on human-baboon conflict and mitigation strategies.
Predator Monitoring & Community Conservation within the Greater Mara Ecosystem
13 September 2023 10:22am
In case you missed it... (no. 1)
12 September 2023 11:49am
13 September 2023 6:23am
The Maasai Mara: Conservation, Communities & Cattle
11 September 2023 2:12pm
Video: WCS Uganda innovating Human-Wildlife Conflict solutions
5 September 2023 12:04pm
Alibaba Cloud's Geo Fencing System in the Mara
1 September 2023 12:27pm
Wilson Sairowua, Tracking Manager at Mara Elephant Project (MEP) narrates how tech4change, Alibaba Cloud's Geo Fencing System paired with collaring has helped to mitigate human-elephant conflict across Maasai Mara and has facilitated a 72% increase in elephants in the Mara region
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
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
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