Sensors already equip a range of tools to enhance monitoring capacity for conservation. Some of the higher bandwidth technologies, like camera traps and acoustic monitoring systems, have been essential elements of the conservation toolkit for decades, and thus have enough users that we've created dedicated WILDLABS groups to address them. But a whole range of lower bandwidth sensors beyond these core technologies are being increasingly integrated into conservation monitoring systems, and offer rich new insights into the wildlife and ecosystems we're all working to protect. As with many technologies, cost and access have historically been challenges to the adoption of new sensors, but with low-cost and open-source solutions on the rise, we're excited to see what the future of this space holds.
Getting Started with Sensors:
- Watch Shah Selbe's Tech Tutors episode on scaling FieldKit, an open-source conservation sensor toolbox, from a project to a successful conservation tech product.
- Check out our Virtual Meetup about Low-Cost, Open-Source Solutions in conservation tech, including a talk by Alasdair Davies on the Arribada Initiative's work with thermal sensors in early warning systems.
- For a more in-depth introduction, watch the first video in our datalogger mini-series: Freaklabs: How do I get started with Arduino?
In this group, you'll meet others who are using and innovating diverse sensors in their work, discuss ways to make sensors more effective & accessible for conservationists, learn about what sensors are already helping us accomplish in the field, and have the opportunity to ask and answer questions. Join this group to get started!
Header image: Emma Vogel, University of Tromsø
International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
Key Biodiversity Areas Programme Officer, IUCN
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- 89 Discussions
- 8 Groups
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- 6 Groups
- @capreolus
- | he/him
Capreolus e.U.
wildlife biologist with capreolus.at
- 1 Resources
- 71 Discussions
- 16 Groups
DIY electronics for behavioral field biology
- 1 Resources
- 56 Discussions
- 4 Groups
WILDLABS & Fauna & Flora
I'm the Platform and Community Support Project Officer at WILDLABS! Speak to me if you have any inquiries about using the WILDLABS Platform or AI for Conservation: Office Hours.
- 18 Resources
- 26 Discussions
- 6 Groups
Aarhus University
Biologist and Research Technician working with ecosystem monitoring and research at Zackenberg Research Station in Greenland
- 12 Resources
- 216 Discussions
- 7 Groups
- @raquelgo
- | (she/her/hers)
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 17 Groups
Worked as a mechanical engineer for a defence co, then software engineer, then for a research lab specialising in underwater robotics.
- 1 Resources
- 139 Discussions
- 16 Groups
- @carlybatist
- | she/her
Science Outreach Lead-Rainforest Connection (RFCx) & Arbimon; Ecoacoustics, biodiversity monitoring, primates, lemurs
- 69 Resources
- 285 Discussions
- 18 Groups
- @StephODonnell
- | She / Her
WILDLABS & Fauna & Flora
I'm the Executive Manager at WILDLABS.
- 152 Resources
- 668 Discussions
- 30 Groups
WILDLABS & Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)
I hold a PhD in Biological Sciences and specialize in bioacoustics and passive acoustic monitoring of cetaceans in the Argentine Sea and Antarctica. Recently, I've also embraced computing to leverage technology in enhancing our conservation efforts.
- 7 Resources
- 2 Discussions
- 14 Groups
American Museum of Natural History
- 1 Resources
- 8 Discussions
- 10 Groups
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
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
The Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute is seeking a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to help us integrate movement data & camera trap data with global conservation policy.
22 April 2024
In a recent publication we tested Underwater Passive Acoustic Monitoring (UPAM) as a feasible non-invasive technique to study the calling behavior of therathened aquatic Andean frogs under natural conditions in the...
6 April 2024
Article
You’re invited to the WILDLABS Variety Hour, a monthly event that connects you to conservation tech's most exciting projects, research, and ideas. We can't wait to bring you a whole new season of speakers and...
22 March 2024
This funding opportunity is to support projects to enhance existing, high TRL (7-9) marine biogeochemical sensors and integrate with National Marine Equipment Pool’s autonomous underwater platforms. You must be based...
11 March 2024
The IQOE Task Team on Low-Cost Hydrophones for Research, Education, and Citizen Science is looking for industry partners to develop a low-cost hydrophone.
15 December 2023
Funding
With $60,000, $30,000, and $10,000 grants available for 14 outstanding projects, the support of engineering and technology talent from Arm (the leading semiconductor design company), and access to the world’s biggest...
1 December 2023
April 2024
event
March 2024
event
12 Products
Recently updated products
101 Products
1 R&D Projects
69 Organisations
Recently updated products
Recently updated R&D Projects
Recently updated organisations
Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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'Gundi, meaning “glue” in Swahili, is a technology platform that allows conservationists to seamlessly integrate any hardware with any... |
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Data management and processing tools, Sensors, Software and Mobile Apps | 8 months 3 weeks ago | |
Graeme, Maybe speak to a web IT expert. You may be able to have an interface on the webpage which provides the login credentials to the camera, but then passes the image (and... |
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Camera Traps, Sensors | 9 months 3 weeks ago | |
Does anyone know of a network camera that can stream live video direct to a browser page without requiring a password? Our Nest Outdoor... |
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Camera Traps, Sensors | 10 months 1 week ago | |
Thanks, Tim, will keep an eye on Smart Parks. Still the preferred solution from our side. |
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Sensors | 10 months 2 weeks 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 | 11 months ago | |
Ben Letcher from the comment below will be able to provide much more in-depth info, but feel free to email me at [email protected] |
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East Africa Community, Sensors | 11 months ago | |
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 year 1 month 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... |
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Biologging, Marine Conservation, Sensors | 1 year 1 month ago | |
Very cool, @BrettMargoSupplies ! Will keep an eye out for that wireless electrical fence! |
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Sensors | 1 year 1 month ago | |
Hi Jeremy, With a quick search I've found the paper linked below. It looks like equipments such as Livox MID are sufficient for plot-level analyses, but not for individual... |
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Drones, Earth Observation 101 Community, Emerging Tech, Remote Sensing & GIS, Sensors | 1 year 2 months ago | |
Hi @ShwetaMukundan,this could be interesting for you:https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.abb0839https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwiHf2T9bLUhttps://edition.cnn.com/2020... |
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Autonomous Camera Traps for Insects, Sensors | 1 year 2 months ago | |
Our project in very short is, setting up a sensor network for monitoring airborne biomass, mainly insects, birds and bats in near realtime, and to develop a forecast model to be... |
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Autonomous Camera Traps for Insects, Biologging, Remote Sensing & GIS, Sensors | 1 year 2 months ago |
New WildLabs Funding & Finance group
5 June 2024 3:24pm
6 June 2024 1:38am
6 June 2024 4:16am
Apply! 2024 Conservation Tech Award
3 June 2024 3:51pm
Share Your Work in a Conservation Technology Video
17 May 2024 9:06pm
CollarID: multimodal wearable sensor system for wild and domesticated dogs
3 May 2024 1:42am
3 May 2024 10:14am
Hi Patrick,
This is so cool, thanks for sharing! It's also a perfect example of what we were hoping to capture in the R&D section of the inventory - I've created a new entry for #CollarID so it's discoverable and so we can track how it evolves across any mentions in different posts/discussions that come up on WILDLABS. This thread appears on the listing, and I'll make you three the contacts for it too. But please do go in and update any of the info there as well!
Steph
3 May 2024 2:01pm
Hi Steph,
We appreciate the support! Thanks for the tag and your help managing the community!
Patrick
WILDLABS AWARDS 2024 - Underwater Passive Acoustic Monitoring (UPAM) for threatened Andean water frogs
30 March 2024 3:54pm
5 April 2024 12:13pm
Congratulations, very exciting! Keep us updated!
7 April 2024 6:09pm
This is so cool @Mauricio_Akmentins - congrats and look forward to seeing your project evolve!
1 May 2024 5:17pm
Congratulations! My first hydromoth was just arrived yesterday and so excited! Looking forward for the update from your project!!!
The Inventory User Guide
1 May 2024 12:46pm
Introducing The Inventory!
1 May 2024 12:46pm
2 May 2024 3:08pm
3 May 2024 5:33pm
17 May 2024 7:29am
Hiring Chief Engineer at Conservation X Labs
1 May 2024 12:19pm
Postdoc: Biologging & Camera Trap Data Integration
22 April 2024 10:10pm
Early Warning Systems for Human-Wildlife Conflict, Zoonotic Spillover, and Other Conservation Challenges
17 April 2024 5:43pm
TagRanger: Redefining animal tracking iwth ad-hoc wireless networks and software-defined technology
17 April 2024 11:22am
WILDLABS AWARDS 2024 - TimeLord: A low-cost, low-power and low-difficulty timer board to control battery-powered devices
5 April 2024 3:29pm
16 April 2024 9:34am
Thanks @Freaklabs, I think you'll really enjoy getting involved with this too as we're looking for input from makers in the community to get the most from the approach and to capture features and usability ideas from a large number of people.
I've a new modular drop-off tag build using @Rob_Appleby's original SensorDrop board that I think would be great for this project too to see if we can drop different compartments, or do various different timed events with the one TimeLord board.
Most importantly, we have to make it play a MIDI version of the DoctorWho theme song when you arm the device. That has to be the #1 feature if you ask me!
16 April 2024 9:35am
Reminds me that we should look at both terrestrial and marine applications when we get stuck in to the demo builds to make sure we cover use cases
16 April 2024 10:22am
'Most importantly, we have to make it play a MIDI version of the DoctorWho theme song when you arm the device. That has to be the #1 feature if you ask me!'
Seconded!
Seeking Knowledge/Resources about Soil Monitoring
10 April 2024 9:53pm
12 April 2024 2:32pm
Hi Frida.
We are currently doing soil monitoring for ecological restoration in Australia with an organization called Bush Heritage Australia. It's been ongoing for about four years and it's in collaboration with BHA and also Monash University's soil science department. There's more info about the project here:
14 April 2024 12:21am
Hi! If you wouldn't mind, would we be able to exchange emails and connect? I'd love to have a short discussion and get some feedback regarding my senior project
14 April 2024 1:50pm
Sounds good. Just sent you a private message.
Underwater advertisement call of the threatened Telmatobius rubigo (Anura: Telmatobiidae
6 April 2024 9:56pm
WILDLABS AWARDS 2024 - BoutScout: Monitoring System for Avian Nesting Behavior Studies
31 March 2024 5:57am
Early Warning Systems (HWC) - successes/failures, recommendations?
13 December 2023 5:36pm
27 March 2024 3:22pm
Hi @Henrikcox this is very exciting news about the Sentinel. The LoRa and cell options sound really great for a lot of urban/semi-urban areas, so a big potential winner there. Does the Sentinel offer any sort of GPIO pins that could possibly be connected to something external (e.g. like a sound unit that can playback scary sounds) if a detection occurs?
Also @StephODonnell I'd be super keen for something like a 'WILDLABS working group' or similar on this, as it such an important topic.
Rob
27 March 2024 3:45pm
INTERESTING. Okay hold tight on that idea. We've got some events coming on this topic (hence my questions), so a working group could follow on from that?
28 March 2024 7:17am
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.
I would be very keen to discuss your current satellite limitations and suggest options based on your required outcome. Please let me know if I can assist?
The Variety Hour: 2024 Lineup
22 March 2024 4:30pm
Accelerating Adoption of Marine Sensor Innovation - NERC
11 March 2024 3:59pm
A Sensor-Based Approach to Studying Animal Behavior in Light Pollution Research
24 February 2024 9:33pm
27 February 2024 12:38pm
Thanks for helping me!
For now, I'll be testing with mains power (220V). The final prototype needs to be functional using solar panel.
The main system will be a Raspberry Pi, as the Brain of this project, receiving and storage all the measurements from the other devices, controlling the system. The measurement devices will be a microcontroller (still searching for which one to use) with differents sensor, such Lux sensor like TSL2561 or 2591, AudioMoth to record animals sounds, temperature and some other measurements.
For synchronization, must be effective, because the measurements must be or have the same time, so the storage data from differents devices can be grouped by it's timestamp and have full control for animals and fauna. So, probably it will be a lot of data per day.
The distance between each devices I haven't study yet, consider 20 meters within each device.
27 February 2024 1:49pm
Beware that the AudioMoth in itself will drift. It can be hooked up with a GPS to allow for GPS time synchronization, though.
https://www.openacousticdevices.info/gps-sync
27 February 2024 3:11pm
Unless you are planning on making a mesh network between nodes then the total distance spanning the location of all the nodes is important to know, not just the intra node distance.
If you have a Raspberry Pi as a main master node then you could install my sbts-aru project as a base project and you would get a sub-microsecond master time base by default as well as the GPS synchronizes the main system time with typically less than 0.1 microsecond, and SD card corruption resilience due to the in-memory overlayFS architecture.
If the total distance was 20m across all nodes, then the approach above could also combined the audio gathering capability as the sbts-aru project does audio logging as it would be within 20m of an audiomoth anyway, then you also have time-synchonized audio. If the distance is spanning 100m for example and it's just the intranode distance that is 20m then everything is somewhat different with respect to synchronization.
Bio-Logging Science Symposium
9 February 2024 3:59pm
Passionate engineer offering funding and tech solutions pro-bono.
23 January 2024 12:06pm
26 January 2024 3:18pm
Hi Krasi! Greetings from Brazil!
That's a cool journey you've started! Congratulations. And I felt like theSearchLife resonates with the work I'm involved round here. In a nutshell, I live at the heart of the largest remaining of Atlantic forest in the planet - one of the most biodiverse biomes that exist. The subregion where I live is named after and bathed by the "Rio Sagrado" (Sacred River), a magnificent water body with a very rich cultural significance to the region (it has served as a safe zone for fleeing slaves). Well, the river and the entire bioregion is currently under the threat of a truly devastating railroad project which, to say the least is planned to cut through over 100 water springs!
In face of that the local community (myself included) has been mobilizing to raise awareness of the issue and hopefully stop this madness (fueled by strong international forces). One of the ways we've been fighting this is through the seeking of the recognition of the sacred river as an entity of legal rights, who can manifest itself in court, against such threats. And to illustrate what this would look like, I've been developing this AI (LLM) powered avatar for the river, which could maybe serve as its human-relatable voice. An existing prototype of such avatar is available here. It has been fine-tuned with over 20 scientific papers on the Sacred River watershed.
And right now myself and other are mobilizing to manifest the conditions/resources to develop a next version of the avatar, which would include remote sensing capacities so the avatar is directly connected to the river and can possibly write full scientific reports on its physical properties (i.e. water quality) and the surrounding biodiversity. In fact, myself and 3 other members of the WildLabs community have just applied to the WildLabs Grant program in order to accomplish that. Hopefully the results are positive.
Finally, it's worth mentioning that our mobilization around providing an expression medium for the river has been multimodal, including the creation of a shortfilm based on theatrical mobilizations we did during a fest dedicated to the river and its surrounding more-than-human communities. You can check that out here:
Let's chat if any of that catches your interest!
Cheers!
2 February 2024 1:22pm
Hi Danilo. you seem very passionate about this initiative which is a good start.
It is an interesting coincidence that I am starting another project for the coral reefs in the Philipines which also requires water analytics so I can probably work on both projects at the same time.
Let's that have a call and discuss, will send you a pm with my contact details
There is a tech glitch and I don't get email notifications from here.
Power managment/Recharging System and Communication System
2 January 2024 4:06pm
26 January 2024 8:49am
"Seychelles and South Africa did not allow Starlink to operate"
This is not good, has implications for anti-poaching measures.
26 January 2024 9:03am
Power usage for microcontrollers with solar is much more manageable. For Raspberry Pi's and higher it gets expensive and big.
I'm quite impressed by the specs from the Goal Zero Yeti devices. This can have high capacity and be charged with Solar. Not small though. And the price is not in proportion to the Pi's.
So this 200x model for example, would be close to 16 days running the audio recorder. Let's say 10. without solar. Add solar? Depends on the size of the panels I guess. Power usage for mobile networking? Depends on how much you transmit.
Probably some well documented experiments would be really nice for people here. Sounds like something nice for the next set of grants :)
26 January 2024 2:11pm
Real nice video. I'll have another look in the weekend in detail.
How are Outdoor Fire Detection Systems Adapted for Small Forest Areas, Considering the Predominance of Indoor Fire Detectors?
8 January 2024 4:27pm
22 January 2024 6:35pm
Fire detection is a sort of broad idea. Usually people detect the products of fire, and most often this is smoke.
Many home fire detectors in the US use a radioactive source and measure the absorption of the radiation by the air. More smoke means more absorption.
For outdoor fire detection, PM2.5 can be a very good smoke proxy, and outdoor PM2.5 sensing is pretty accessible.
This one is very popular in my area.
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.
Anti-poaching poison detection sensor for temic & karbadust (carbamate)
28 December 2023 2:52pm
Apply to Beta test Instant Detect 2.0
11 May 2023 10:55am
21 December 2023 3:48am
Will you accept personal/hobbyist focused on conservation on their small plots of land (10-100 acres)?
I would, and know others, who would happily pay more than the official conservationists rate for the service, which could help to further subsidize the project. (Referring to your statement here: https://wildlabs.net/discussion/instant-detect-20-and-related-cost)
Low-cost hydrophone - Invitation to tender
15 December 2023 9:28pm
Thermal cameras for monitoring visitors in highly vulnerable conservation areas
21 June 2022 3:44pm
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.
15 December 2023 8:09pm
Hi,
This is a really late answer but I was new to wildlabs then. I have a security appliance that uses state of the AI models and user defined polygon areas of interest that generates video alerts of intrusions in typically under a second.
Although its setup to install automatically on an NVidia AI on the edge boxes of your intentions were to monitor a great deal of cameras you could also install it on a desktop with a high end GPU for very high performance. At home I use a desktop with an rtx 2080ti and monitor around 15 cameras and a thermal imaging camera (old one).
I have also tested a high end model (yolov7) on a high end thermal imaging camera image and it works fine as well.
Thermal imaging cameras are hellishly expensive though and I’ve found that new extremely light sensitive cameras like the HIKvision colorvu series almost obsoletes them in terms of people detection at night at a fraction of the cost.
If you are interested I’d be happy to show you a demo in a video meeting sometime if you like. I’m pretty sure it would meeting all your intrusion detection and alerting needs.
My project page is
Shedding light on nocturnal behaviour: A cost-effective solution for remote, infrared video recording in the field
13 December 2023 5:55pm
Data Viz Inspo for the Holidays
11 December 2023 8:42pm
5 June 2024 4:14pm