Although they cover over 70% of our planet, only 0.6% of the world oceans are protected. It is estimated that we only know about 1 in 10 species in the ocean, which is unsurprising given that 90% of the ocean is more than half a mile deep and still remains largely unexplored. How might technology help us discover, understand and protect the vulnerable ecosystems below the waterline?
Marine Conservation is a fast-growing group in the WILDLABS community, capturing a wide variety of tech expertise within its member base, including those working with bioacoustic gear and hydrophones, AUVs and drones, sensors, machine learning, and more. By bringing together WILDLABS members from so many areas of conservation tech, the Marine Conservation group is the perfect place to collaborate on big, complex issues like marine biodiversity monitoring, coral reef health, plastic pollution, and sustainability.
The Marine Conservation group forum is also your place to chat about and solve the challenges unique to using conservation technology in marine environments. Whether you're struggling with deep-sea connectivity or salt water impacting gear longevity, or looking for remote solutions for long-term reef monitoring or biologging data collection, this group wants to help you explore the possibilities!
Check out some of the key marine conservation tech resources, conversations, and virtual events from across the WILDLABS platform:
Tutorials and Talks to Watch on Demand:
- Virtual Meetups: Developing cost-effective, open-source marine megafauna tracking, Jake Levenson
- Tech Tutors: How do I use open source remote sensing data to monitor fishing?, Max Schofield
- Virtual Meetups: eDNA for Aquatic Biodiversity, Alice Valentini
Case Studies, Tools, Research, and News:
- Southern Right Whales & Genome and Satellite Technology, Emma Carroll | eDNA & genomics, satellite data, biodiversity monitoring, climate change
- Building Experts Into AI, Whale Seeker | Machine learning, marine conservation, AI ethics
- Using AIS Data to Investigate the World’s Fishing Ports, Max Schofield | Remote sensing, data visualisation, fishing monitoring
- Small-scale fisheries and tech resources, Dan Steadman | Fishery monitoring, webinars, best practices
- Press Release: BAS Giant Iceberg Mission, British Antarctic Survey | Climate change, AUVs, remote sensing
- Case Study: Thermal imaging, drones, and loggerhead sea turtles, Megan Ossmann | FLIR, Duo Pro R camera, drones
- eDNA sampling to detect invasive snails in shipping ballast water, Gavin Shelton | Invasive species, eDNA, shipping
- Sustainable Fishing Challenges: Fish Catch Monitoring, Dan Steadman | Biologging, sensors, fishing monitoring
Conversations and Questions:
- Satellite tags for marine turtle recommendations | Alasdair Davies
- Calling all hydrophone users! | Team Open Acoustic Devices
- How difficult is it to build a buoy and constrain it in place? | Lindy Knowles
- Methods to detect Derelict Fishing Gear | Nandini Mehrotra
- Drone Mapping for Algal Blooms? | Harold Tay
- Minimising habitat impact of trawling gear | Dan Steadman
- Estimating carbon from 3d models of mangroves | Mark Brown
- Can we detect gillnets in turbid water? | Aurélie Shapiro
- New low cost DIY temperature loggers for reef monitoring | Harold Tay
- Machine learning to detect fish bomb blasts | Jamie Macaulay
Header Image: Emma Vogel
PhD student-passive acoustic monitoring with lemurs in Madagascar; Science Outreach Coordinator-Rainforest Connection (RFCx)
- 62 Resources
- 232 Discussions
- 18 Groups
Certified Associate Wildlife Biologist
- 0 Resources
- 3 Discussions
- 7 Groups
I am a Media Creative with over 15 years work experience in the commercial and environmental sector. I love turning stories into visuals be it pictures, videos or simple animations.
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 6 Groups
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 4 Groups
Conservation Technologist, National Geographic Explorer, and Founder of Conservify and FieldKit
- 0 Resources
- 5 Discussions
- 18 Groups
Jack of all Trades. I've been a zoo keeper, a conservation geneticist and a web developer who specialises in conservation projects and orgs.
- 0 Resources
- 3 Discussions
- 15 Groups
I'm the WILDLABS Research Specialist at WWF-US
- 7 Resources
- 52 Discussions
- 24 Groups
Worked as a mechanical engineer for a defence co, then software engineer, then for a research lab specialising in underwater robotics.
- 1 Resources
- 127 Discussions
- 16 Groups
FileMaker Database developer with a passion for nature.
- 0 Resources
- 33 Discussions
- 7 Groups
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 3 Groups
Marine mammal ecologist and online technical trainer
- 1 Resources
- 16 Discussions
- 6 Groups
- 0 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 1 Groups
Cefas is seeking a Director to lead the development and application of innovative, data-driven approaches for marine and freshwater monitoring efforts.
2 June 2023
In this Conservation Tech Showcase case study from Ashored Innovations, we’ll learn how conservation technology is transforming fishing techniques to safeguard marine wildlife.
1 June 2023
This Data4Good project has led to immediate conservation impacts for many islands and many different resources. We hope that this project will inspire others to use data science and technology to solve the conservation...
17 May 2023
In this Conservation Tech Showcase case study from Happywhale, you’ll learn about how AI tools are helping researchers and citizen scientists identify and protect humpback whales.
16 May 2023
1
Are you using or creating tech to protect wildlife? We want to support your organization through two $15,000 grants!
15 May 2023
1
How can you use tools like photo quadrats, AI, and MERMAID together? We share an example overview of how WCS Staff in Mozambique use image classification tools with MERMAID to integrate photo quadrat and other coral...
12 May 2023
Welcome to our new Conservation Tech Showcase, a series highlighting innovative and impactful projects from outstanding organizations around the world.
11 May 2023
1
Global Fishing Watch are looking for a data scientist to join the Research and Innovation team. Help us tackle geospatial data fusion problems to produce the most complete picture of human activity at sea.
19 April 2023
If you've been waiting to try a HydroMoth, join the GroupGets campaign before limited supplies run out
17 April 2023
Careers
We create Precision Fishing technology to help commercial fishermen catch their target species more consistently & sustainably.
5 April 2023
Skylight is looking for someone who loves our ocean, has a deep interest in apply cutting-edge tech to protect it, is proficient in English and Spanish, and has a background in partnership building and training.
10 March 2023
A machine learning-based solution that can segment the Prosomes and Lipid sacs with sufficient accuracy helps to recognize the ecological plasticity of key Arctic copepods. It allows scientists to learn more about the...
15 February 2023
2
July 2023
event
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November 2023
event
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March 2023
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February 2023
Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Hi. I'm looking for an off-the-shelf saltwater switch for an undersea application. It needs to be depth rated Is there anything like this... |
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Marine Conservation, Sensors | 1 month ago | |
Seeing the pictures that @lmccaskill uploaded got my brain storming, so to say. Are you working with similar small boats? I was assuming bigger fishing ships that are registered... |
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Drones, Marine Conservation, Wildlife Crime | 1 month 3 weeks ago | |
Not sure exactly how your telemetry will be deployed, but if it's going to be attached to an animal in a relatively non-invasive way, you might check with zoos or aquariums that... |
+3
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Biologging, Marine Conservation, Sensors | 1 month 3 weeks ago | |
Hi everyone! The Fine Grained Visual Categorization Workshop (FGVC) is hosting its 10th rendition at CVPR this June in Vancouver. A huge... |
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AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Marine Conservation | 2 months ago | |
In 2020, I made a survey of sea turtle research databases and an outline for a design of the most commonly required features. At that time, building such a database seemed too... |
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Marine Conservation | 2 months 1 week ago | |
We have made available our underwater videos on YouTube as a playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnhVZKKy8WkZKriCIV6r7upWhHNVrU_7L It's about 1.113 short video... |
+2
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AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Data management and processing tools, Marine Conservation | 3 months ago | |
Hey all!I'm looking for image datasets of Indo-Pacific fish species (Red Sea, if I'm being specific) for detection/classification.... |
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Marine Conservation | 6 months 2 weeks ago | |
@Andrew_Hill I wonder if you could let us know more about the time keeping difference btw the regular AudioMoth and the HydroMoth (which is said to do better)? |
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Acoustic Monitoring, Marine Conservation | 10 months 1 week ago | |
Hello,The hydrophone_survey_results.pdf file is not opening. Is the link still working? I would be keen to see it. Thank you. |
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Marine Conservation | 11 months 1 week ago | |
If you're looking to identify collaborators - probably lots of organizations listed in the Conservation Tech Directory would be interested (quick prelim search yields orgs like... |
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Marine Conservation, Open Source Solutions | 11 months 2 weeks ago | |
Fascinating article, combining machine learning and acoustical signals to correlate coral reef health.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science... |
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Acoustic Monitoring, AI for Conservation, Marine Conservation | 1 year ago | |
Hi @cosmicspittle ! Thank you for your interest to our technology! I sent you a private message to continue the discussion. |
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Marine Conservation | 1 year 6 months ago |
Celebrating World Oceans Day: Revitalizing the marine ecosystem with technology-driven engineered reefs to accelerate CO2 capture
9 June 2023 10:14am
As we celebrate World Oceans Day this month, we are reminded that addressing climate change will take more than any one organization. It will require companies, governments, NGOs and communities, all working together, with the aid of technology, to improve the efficiencies of our activities and operations and to reduce costs, waste and emissions. Such an example is IBM and The Reef Company recently joining forces signing a joint initiative agreement aimed at bolstering their ocean conservation endeavors.
UNEP Executive Director - Inger Andersen's take on why African nations have the power & tools to re-design a plastic pollution-free future
5 June 2023 1:28pm
Inger Andersen, the Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) explains how the innovative approaches towards curbing plastic pollution witnessed across African nations can help in pivoting to a plastics-free future through pioneering innovative manufacturing, packaging and design solutions.
This opinion first appeared in The Nation Africa
Register your #WorldEnvironmentDay Event or Activity and Share it with the World
5 June 2023 1:07pm
It's World Environment Day! This year the focus is on solutions to plastic pollution under the campaign #BeatPlasticPollution.
How are you getting involved to solve plastic pollution using conservation technology?
Opportunity: Director of Digital, Data and Technology
2 June 2023 12:40am
Ashored Innovations: Hardware and Software for Sustainable Fishing

1 June 2023 9:46pm
Data Visualization in Service of Coral Reefs in Micronesia
17 May 2023 8:53pm
Happywhale: AI-Powered Whale Identification

16 May 2023 10:00am
Applications Now Open: Conservation Tech Award
15 May 2023 10:21pm
Photo Quadrats, AI, and MERMAID: A Case Study from Mozambique
12 May 2023 3:44pm
Introducing the 2023 Conservation Tech Showcase
11 May 2023 5:06pm
Looking for an off-the-shelf saltwater switch
6 May 2023 6:05am
New Paper: Identification of fish sounds
5 May 2023 12:40am
Xavier Mouy recently shared this new bioacoustics paper on Twitter. This research focuses on identifying fish sounds in relation to specific species through the use of three underwater portable audio-video platforms. The proposed array designs successfully identified fish sounds, and this paper covers instructions for others working in marine bioacoustics who would like to apply these ideas to their own work.
EarthRanger User Conference
27 April 2023 5:52am
Data Scientist (Geospatial), Global Fishing Watch

19 April 2023 10:34am
HydroMoth GroupGets Campaign is Open
17 April 2023 8:44pm
Drones for IUU (illegal fishing activities & vessel monitoring)
20 March 2023 6:00am
11 April 2023 5:48am
Hi Frank! Thanks so much for your reply. Yes I have been looking into the same sort of workflow as with camera traps etc and seem to be getting somewhere (although am yet to have my own data set with which to check!).
Yes, with the transponder issue, actually NONE of the boats here have them! There has been a push to get boats to install them further down the coast, but it was marred by the usual corruption and forceless enforcement. So everything will be visual, rather than working on any signal given out by the boats themselves. I am looking into ai programs that can analyse footage and as you say, it can be done with species so I see no reason it cannot be done with vessels given the parameters to look for
14 April 2023 12:57am
Seeing the pictures that @lmccaskill uploaded got my brain storming, so to say. Are you working with similar small boats? I was assuming bigger fishing ships that are registered somewhere. If the boats are not registered and there are no existing photos of them, and you want to identify the individual boats, you'll need to build your own catalogue to train an AI.
However / in addition, if the boats have written text on them with a name or a code or number, like in the pictures, then it should be ridiculously easy to identify boats. No AI needed. I discovered recently that my laptop has started showing find results based on text in photos. If different boats are of the same model, again like in the pictures, then there is nothing else left than what is written on them ... well, perhaps the color scheme.
... or perhaps face recognition if the image quality allows it. But then you'll be at square 1 again with training an AI.
Field testing of a radio telemetry system to be deployed in the sea.
24 January 2023 6:52am
21 March 2023 2:47am
Here's a link about waterproofing in the marine environment, if you haven't already discovered Ed Mallon.
21 March 2023 8:52am
Oh, great link! Been doing marine projects recently and a big headache is protecting submerged electronics. I've kind of heard of many of those techniques, but great to see them collected all in one place and with first hand experienced commentary regarding them.
12 April 2023 2:32pm
Not sure exactly how your telemetry will be deployed, but if it's going to be attached to an animal in a relatively non-invasive way, you might check with zoos or aquariums that have similar species.
I worked in that industry for a long time and we tested telemetry for seals, sea lions, polar bears and elephants. There might have been more, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head. This can help improve attachment methods and test how tough the animals will be on the equipment.
Office & Warehouse Exec
5 April 2023 6:22pm
Computer Vision Competitions on Natural-World datasets
5 April 2023 4:26pm
Tools & Experiences with Sea Turtle Monitoring
17 March 2023 1:00pm
17 March 2023 4:23pm
Great webinar! I am working with the Dominica Sea Turtle Conservation Organization and would love to get in touch about the apps Mtalii and his team use for collecting their data. We're looking to streamline our process and make it easier for our volunteers to help capture vital nesting and sighting data on Dominica. Hoping to connect with Mtalii so we can implement some of the awesome apps they've been using for their turtle research. Feel free to message me! Thanks!
21 March 2023 1:00pm
Hey Amelia, thanks for reaching out and sorry for my late feedback. I am sharing my address: [email protected] for more conversation about this. we can schedule an online call and also introduce the teams when ready. Thanks
30 March 2023 6:00pm
In 2020, I made a survey of sea turtle research databases and an outline for a design of the most commonly required features. At that time, building such a database seemed too risky for me, but if you are interested, please do drop me a line.
After I published the list, I also found out about Torsooi
The rush to increase deep sea mining
16 March 2023 9:19pm
This new article about the future of deep-sea mining caught my eye, because it's a topic we'd hope to cover in our upcoming sustainability series. It's a subject we'd still like to highlight on WILDLABS as most tech tools include elements mined from unsustainable operations - definitely something we'd like to discuss with this community soon!
Skylight | LATAM & Caribbean Partner Relationship Manager
10 March 2023 5:21pm
Underwater Fish Datasets from the Mediterranean
15 August 2022 11:45pm
26 September 2022 9:32pm
Not sure if audio data would be of any use to you, but if so FishSounds has some - I just tried their search function and there is a location tag for 'Mediterranean & Black Sea'.
You might try reaching out to the folks at Name that Fish, Innovasea, or perhaps an entity on the Fisheries Tech list would have Mediterranean stuff?
21 October 2022 7:52am
Hi,
If this is still relevant, you can try reaching out to the Belmaker lab, they do BRUV surveys in the eastern Mediterranean and have hours of video, some of it I believe is annotated. Particularly, Shahar might be helpful, he's the PhD student running point on the project.
2 March 2023 2:03pm
We have made available our underwater videos on YouTube as a playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnhVZKKy8WkZKriCIV6r7upWhHNVrU_7L
It's about 1.113 short video clips with annotation and each is linked to the corresponding www.iNaturalist.org observations. The iNaturalist.org observations are research quality and have been uploaded to GBIF.org. The observations have been made between 2014 and 2022 around the Ionian Islands (Greece).
If you would need the original videos please contact me.

Zooplankton Prosome and Lipid Sac Segmentation
15 February 2023 1:44pm
Catch up with The Variety Hour: February
14 February 2023 6:26pm
How do I get started with mobile phones in sea turtle monitoring?
13 February 2023 10:01am
Research Associate - Machine Learning (Underwater Sound)
10 February 2023 10:19am
Engineering Manager, Skylight

10 February 2023 10:14am
Technical Officer – IMOS Animal Tracking Facility
7 February 2023 12:30pm
International Congress for Conservation Biology
16 January 2023 2:53pm
11 April 2023 5:44am
Fantastic news, and so great to see it having a positive impact immediately. I am hoping for the same effectiveness here!