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Want to talk about sensors that don't quite fit into any of our tech-specific groups? This is the place to post! From temperature and humidity to airflow and pressure sensors, there are many environmental sensing tools that can add valuable data to core conservation monitoring technologies. With the increasing availability of low-cost, open-source options, we've seen growing interest in integrating these kinds of low bandwidth sensors into existing tools. What kinds of sensors are you working with?

discussion

Thermal cameras for monitoring visitors in highly vulnerable conservation areas

Alex González

21 June 2022 at 03:44pm

Hi everybody, Im Alex González, a consultant and researcher in sustainable tourism and conservation. I'm currently consulting a conservation organisation for the development...

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Carly Batist

21 June 2022 at 09:20pm

You should talk with the folks at Arribada Initiative, like @Alasdair, as they've used thermal cameras to automatically detect polar bears & alert local response teams (to avoid human-wildlife conflict). The folks at ConservationAI are also doing similar work. RESOLVE also has the Trailguard system 

Most of the geofencing projects I know of are working with tags rather than cameras (e.g., LionShield, Save the Elephants) but it sounds like that wouldn't be as relevant for your needs.

The Conservation Tech Directory may have other examples as well.  

Alex González

22 June 2022 at 07:14am

Thanks! Actually a major concern is wether thermal cameras could substitute the use of eco-counters, and therefore save money and reduce complexity in data analysis. 

I will contact them.

Kennedy Muriithi

23 June 2022 at 01:41pm

At Ol Pejeta, through the Kifaru Rising project, we have 19 FLIR thermal cameras that we use to address poaching as a conservation challenge.

The cameras have been deployed along a key fence line and are monitored 24/7 by a dedicated team.

The cameras have inbuilt analytics capabilities which allow us to design virtual fences/boundaries. 

An Alert is  generated whenever a human or vehicles crosses the virtual fence. Following an alert, appropriate ranger action is undertaken depending on the video content recorded with each alert.

I think the Alert feature available with these cameras could be leveraged to monitor the wildlife visitor interaction, seeing as a video clip is recorded with each alert, the thermal video clips could be reviewed to assess the wildlife-human interaction effects.

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discussion

Virtual fencing / Kinetic energy harvesting / Holistic grazing

David Blažević

16 June 2022 at 07:12am

Hi everyone, Stephanie invited me to share some recent developments in Finalnd.I'm David and I'm a mechanical engineer from Rijeka, Croatia, working as a Marie Curie postdoc at...

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David Blažević

21 June 2022 at 07:59am

Hi,

Akiba! Thank you for the nice words. 

It seems we're technologically at a point where power dissipation of digital processors can match the kinetic energy harvesting (KEH) power outputs - and it's getting better all the time. It can get very depressing when talking about real intermittent power available from a KEH generator (range of hundreds of uW to single digit mW - and 0 when no movement). That's why it's important to build the application and sampling times around it - and vice versa. 

PS:

Great work with the soil sensors! I was playing around with the ThingsOnEdge cricket with the Dallas temp. sensor for my wife's compost temperature monitoring - it worked like a charm - but yeah - you need a Wi-Fi close by. It would be impossible for here to get precise compost turn-over times and consequently correct compost microbial-fungal composition without it!

Carly Batist

21 June 2022 at 10:42pm

So for someone very much not on the tech-side of conservation tech.... kinetic energy harvesting collars are using the kinetic energy from the animal's movements to power the collar? Or have I completely butchered that?

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