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
- @Kathinja
- | He
a geography student with keen interests in geographic information systems(GIS) a climate enthusiast, sustainable development, conservation effort and green technologies
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- 0 Discussions
- 4 Groups
Freaklabs
I'm an engineer and product designer working on wildlife conservation technology.
- 0 Resources
- 273 Discussions
- 14 Groups
- @CourtneyShuert
- | she/her
I am a behavioural ecologist and eco-physiologist interested in individual differences in marine mammals and other predators
- 0 Resources
- 7 Discussions
- 6 Groups
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- 3 Discussions
- 3 Groups
- @TaliaSpeaker
- | She/her
WILDLABS & World Wide Fund for Nature/ World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
I'm the WILDLABS Research Specialist at WWF-US
- 13 Resources
- 56 Discussions
- 24 Groups
Interested in EvoDevo, Bioinformatics, Genomes and Conservations Tools. Your contact for SequenceServer. https://sequenceserver.com/
- 0 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 5 Groups
Wildlife Drones
Wildlife Drones has developed the world’s most innovative radio animal-tracking system using drones so you can track your radio-tagged animals like never before.
- 11 Resources
- 8 Discussions
- 32 Groups
- @bradnahill
- | he / him
SEE Turtles
Brad has worked in sea turtle conservation & ecotourism for 20+ years. He is the lead writer of Sea Turtle Research and Conservation and co-author of the Worldwide Travel Guide to Sea Turtles. He has won the President's Award from the International Sea Turtle Society.
- 1 Resources
- 4 Discussions
- 6 Groups
PhD Candidate in autonomous marine biodiversity modelling
- 0 Resources
- 11 Discussions
- 8 Groups
FruitPunch AI
CTO and Founder of FruitPunch AI
- 0 Resources
- 4 Discussions
- 11 Groups
- @stefan_istrate
- | he/him
Machine Learning Researcher & Nature Photographer. Building conservation tech for biodiversity monitoring at Wildlife Insights.
- 0 Resources
- 2 Discussions
- 9 Groups
- 0 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 1 Groups
Explore BOEM data, build analytic tools, and recommend solutions for sea turtle relocation trawling approaches to reduce incidental risk. Prize: $40,000
21 September 2022
Tenure track position in Marine Biology
12 September 2022
Mystic Aquarium is seeking a Postdoctoral Investigator (PDI) to address noise impacts on aquatic species, particularly beluga whales, seals and turtles. This project will develop & carry out research to address...
1 September 2022
Seeking interested individuals with qualifications and educational background and experience in marine species biology/ecology (marine mammals, sea turtles, fish, seabirds, etc.); with skills in applied scientific study...
31 August 2022
We are looking for an international consultant to develop and implement the SMART System for São Tomé and Principe terrestrial and marine ecosystems in Portuguese
31 August 2022
Marine Acoustics, Inc. (MAI) is seeking an Acoustic Modeler and Analyst to assist us in the analysis of underwater acoustic system performance and the effect underwater acoustic transmissions have on the marine...
30 August 2022
Careers
SafetyNet Technologies is seeking a new Commercial Director to help them scale up their conservation tech hardware product development.
12 August 2022
The Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing (MaRRS) Lab at Duke University seeks a highly motivated postdoctoral researcher to support the ongoing development of new and existing research and conservation programs, both...
10 August 2022
Under the direction of Dr. Ari Friedlaender, the postdoc will conduct field work & manage data analysis related to ongoing biologging projects in the lab. The lab is currently active in long-term ecological...
22 July 2022
The Earth Species Project (ESP) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to decoding animal communication and translating non-human language.
15 July 2022
WHOI is establishing an Imaging Technology Laboratory (ITL) & seeks a senior technical leader to lead the initiative. The primary goal of the ITL is to create a center of excellence to serve the technical imaging...
11 July 2022
We are looking for an international consultant to develop and implement the SMART system for São Tomé and Príncipe terrestrial and marine ecosystems, in Portuguese
1 July 2022
July 2024
August 2024
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Thanks so much for this Kortney! |
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Marine Conservation | 3 years 9 months ago | |
Is this offer still open |
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Camera Traps, Marine Conservation | 4 years ago | |
Thanks Kate - that's really helpful. The company in question are investors in an emerging high-end aquaculture venture and I assume their interest is around utilising... |
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Marine Conservation | 4 years 2 months ago | |
Hi everyone! I'm working on a project to detect and then predict where to find Derelict Fishing Gear in Coastal Waters along a 160km... |
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Marine Conservation | 5 years ago | |
Hi Don, I agree, it's very intriguing. I think they're using the Remora. It looks like a solar powered GPS tracker. I couldn't find much more... |
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Marine Conservation | 5 years 3 months ago | |
ATLAN Space recently announced a pilot launch that will use autonomous drones and computer vision to report illegal fishing in the Seychelles islands. This article gives... |
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Marine Conservation | 5 years 8 months ago | |
Recently the National Whistleblower Center has worked on analyzing the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships ("APPS"), which... |
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Marine Conservation | 5 years 10 months ago | |
I wanted to post a resource for all who may be interested. The National Whistleblower Center is a non-partisan, nonprofit organization that... |
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Marine Conservation | 5 years 10 months ago | |
The Okinawa Prefectural Government recently released this summary report on the symposium on Henoko-Oura Bay, in Okinawa Japan, organized... |
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Marine Conservation | 5 years 10 months ago | |
The top 20 submissions are open for public voting through Oct. 19, so you can go test out what people built. |
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Marine Conservation | 6 years 8 months ago | |
Speaking of data interpretation, creating an IUU risk score was the challenge for this team from the Data Science for Social Good summer fellows program. I saw a presentation on... |
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Marine Conservation | 6 years 8 months ago | |
The SMART Partnership will be attending the International Marine Protected Areas Congress (IMPAC4) hosted in La Serena, Chile, from the... |
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Marine Conservation | 6 years 9 months ago |
eDNA Collaborative: Small Grants Application for Marine eDNA Research
12 February 2024 7:45pm
The eDNA Collaborative is partnering with Experiment to offer $80,000 in small grants to support projects that demonstrate novel approaches in marine eDNA collection, analysis, or application.
Submission Deadline: March 30, 2024
Bio-Logging Science Symposium
9 February 2024 3:59pm
Southern African Wildlife Management Association Conference 2024
6 February 2024 12:20pm
Project Planning for Wildlife Conservation
30 January 2024 3:13pm
Jupyter Notebook: Aquatic Computer Vision
25 January 2024 5:50am
27 January 2024 4:07am
This definitely seems like the community to do it. I was looking at the thread about wolf detection and it seems like people here are no strangers to image classification. A little overwhelming to be quite honest 😂
While it would be incredible to have a powerful model that was capable of auto-classifying everything right away and storing all the detected creatures & correlated sensor data straight into a database - I wonder if in remote cases where power (and therefore cpu bandwidth), data storage, and network connectivity is at a premium if it would be more valuable to just be able to highlight moments of interest for lab analysis later? OR if you do you have cellular connection, you could download just those moments of interest and not hours and hours of footage?
27 January 2024 6:11am
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 deadlines, it should be possible to explore building efficient model for object detection and looking at suitable hardware for running these model on the edge.
Recycled & DIY Remote Monitoring Buoy
15 January 2024 1:14am
15 January 2024 9:17pm
Hello fellow Brett. Cool project. You mentioned a waterseal testing process. Is there documentation on that?
18 January 2024 10:25am
I dont have anything written up but I can tell what parts we used and how we tested.
Its pretty straightforward, we used this M10 Enclosure Vent from Blue Robotics:
Along with this nipple adapter:
Then you can use any cheap hand held break pump to connect to your enclosure. You can pump a small vacuum in and make sure the pressure holds.
Here's a tutorial video from blue robotics:
Let me know if you have any questions or if I can help out.
Looking for a Supervisor/Research Group - ML-driven Marine Biomonitoring
3 January 2024 2:05pm
5 January 2024 11:07am
Hi Filippo,
Nice to read your message. Have you thought of contacting anyone in the Bioscience department at UCL? In our group "the People and Nature Lab", a few PhD students (Ben and Jason) are working on ML methods for coral reef monitoring. Might be interesting to reach out to them. List of People at CBER.
Best, Aude
7 January 2024 6:06pm
Thanks Aude, very useful. Will reach out to them!
Open-Source design guide for a low-cost, long-running aquatic stereo camera
13 December 2023 5:47pm
15 December 2023 4:53pm
This is awesome - thanks for sharing Stephanie!! We actually were looking around for a low-cost video camera to augment an MPA monitoring project locally and this looks like a really great option!
Cheers, Liz
28 December 2023 8:54pm
Thank you for sharing! Super interesting, as we don't see many underwater stereo cameras! We also use Blue Robotics components in our projects and have found them reliable and easy to work with.
Hydromoth for coastal & offshore surveying
16 November 2023 7:36am
18 November 2023 1:47am
Hi Sol,
I think your concern is well placed. The pros typically tow an array of hydrophones, in its simpler configuration it looks like a long fat rubber hose containing maybe a dozen transducers feeding their electrical signals to a recording unit back on the ship. All this is done to reduce noise from the ship, from waves crashing, and flow noise. The multiple transducers can also be electronically tuned to be directional so that it can be "pointed" away from a noise source (like the ship).
In your position, I would just try the simplest thing that could work, then fix the problems as they arise. It could be you may need to be dead in the water while recording. To address surface noise (slapping waves, wind), you could mount the hydromoth low down on a spar buoy, which you tow into position.
Best of luck, it sounds like an interesting project (c:
19 December 2023 2:20pm
Hydromoths are great for the price but they do not have the most streamlined housing and audio quality won't be as good as something like a SoundTrap or really any recorder with a proper hydrophone and 16-bit +DAQ system.
If you can afford it, this is an excellent SoundTrap based towed autonomous system NOAA have been using. It might work towed behind an autonomous vehicle
Alternatively, if you can have something inside the vehicle, a simple tape recorder (e.g. Tascam DR40X) and hydrophone on cable will provide excellent sound quality. You could also use something like a Raspberry Pi with audio focussed ADC hat to record but that would require a bit more programming. Even consider a standard AudioMoth and plug a proper hydrophone into the audio jack - this would still have a 12-bit ADC but would provide better sound quality than a hydromoth (hydrophones are more omnidirectional and there's no air filled causing reflections and attenuation)
20 December 2023 6:57am
If you are considering an external microphone and a towed system, then you would also be in a position to consider a raspberry pi with an external microphone with sbts-aru. Another option:
Seeking Host Organisations for Travel Scholarship Application
19 December 2023 12:54am
20 December 2023 3:07am
Hi Eva,
Me and my colleagues run a small NGO based on Yogyakarta in Indonesia, although our projects are spread around the country. One of our active project is working with the movement ecology of Sunda gharials in Berbak-Sembilang National Park. One of the other is for Malayan Giant Turtle conservation using one-plan approach, which we are planning to start in situ phase. We can't give you promise about anything, but are able to be the host organization and would love to talk the opportunity!
Cheers,
Dhanu
Update on SEE Shell App to identify illegal tortoiseshell products
14 December 2023 10:00pm
Data Viz Inspo for the Holidays
11 December 2023 8:42pm
Shark BRUV annotated data needed! ML for automatic BRUV postprocessing
4 December 2023 11:55am
Into the Underwater Savanna: BRUV Surveys In Seagrass Beds
30 November 2023 6:12pm
Wishlist for kit in a field-based Research Station or tech testing space?
27 November 2023 10:41am
28 November 2023 3:25am
Regine Weckauf over on linkedin:
'Little to do with research and tech development, but given how hard it is to attract and retain experienced staff to field based positions, I know it makes a difference how nice the space is. Just because it's the "field", shouldn't mean staff living in basic conditions, regardless of how many times we've been told to see it as a badge of honor. If you have the money, put in nice bathrooms, kitchen, living spaces, and private accommodation. Maybe even a nursery? It creates more local employment opportunities and people genuinely want to visit.'
28 November 2023 2:25pm
Love the idea for in-house gear/supplies! It can be SOO difficult to travel with batteries, electronics parts with airline regs, country policies, etc. and shipping recorders/trail cams/etc. gets VERY (prohibitively) pricey in some countries with customs and taxes. Would be great to have an in-country place to source that kind of equipment.
Housing educational resources related to that tech (in the form of people, print materials, computer tutorials) in-house would be similarly awesome. Particularly/especially in local languages.
Having in-country wet labs as well helps the eDNA/genetics folks, since sample import/export permitting can be (always seems to be?!) a nightmare, so if you can even just do PCR and/or extractions in-country that helps a ton.
In terms of overall field-station-wishlist - honestly, just the promise of continued funding and staff. Every field station I've been to or worked at is in a constant search for enough money to get through the next month/year, because the funding comes in the establish a station but then not to maintain it long-term. It's not sexy for a wishlist per se, but boy is it over-looked and much-needed.
@hikinghack from Dinalab would probably have lots of good insights on this!
29 November 2023 7:59pm
My suggestion would probably be a 3D printer and Solder Station with a stock of common components. With those two things you can solve most problems.
Tenure Track Scientists (Sensing, Robotics, Machine Learning) - AOPE, WHOI
27 November 2023 9:21am
ICOTEQ launch TAGRANGER® system of products
23 November 2023 1:25pm
AWMS Conference 2023
PhD Opportunity - Marine Bioacoustics and Behaviour Lab
16 November 2023 2:13pm
Researching Seagrass Habitats Along the Kenyan Coast
14 November 2023 6:47pm
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.
Correspondence among multiple methods provides confidence when measuring marine protected area effects for species and assemblages
20 October 2023 12:28pm
When considering MPA groundfish monitoring methods: the more, the merrier! New paper out in Journal of Applied Ecology compared three MPA monitoring techniques commonly utilised to survey groundfish populations. They found that using multiple methods was the best approach.
Marine Flyways - Seabird Tracking Database
20 October 2023 12:23pm
To celebrate #WMBD, BirdLife is excited to share the newly identified Marine Flyways!! Seabird tracking data were shared by over 60 researchers from 48 long-distance migratory species and have revealed SIX MarineFlyways. They've created an awesome animation to go along with it!
Catch up with The Variety Hour: October 2023
19 October 2023 11:59am
Monitoring and Evaluation for Wildlife Conservation
18 October 2023 2:22pm
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!
GOSH Community Call: Open Hardware for Marine Science Applications
10 October 2023 12:33pm
GEO BON Monitoring Biodiversity for Action
5 October 2023 3:10pm
🚀 New Grant: 'Satellites for Biodiversity Award' Round 2
2 October 2023 1:50pm
IUCN and AI2 to provide AI technology at no cost to fast-track implementation of newly signed UN High Seas Treaty
22 September 2023 9:54am
26 January 2024 1:46pm
This is quite interesting. Would love to see if we could improve this code using custom models and alternative ways of processing the video stream.