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
Tech for Conservation
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I am a ecologist and conservationist particularly excited about tech to aid biodiversity monitoring with a growing interest in analytics and AI. I am also a Project Manager at Rainforest Connection.
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University of the West of England
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Ol Pejeta Conservancy
IT Engineer at The Conservation Tech Lab in Ol Pejeta Conservancy. |Endeavoring to implement tech solutions for conservation.
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Entrepreneur building AI-driven acoustic monitoring technology for comprehensive wildlife conservation, protection and ecosystem health monitoring.
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Queensland University of Technology (QUT)
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The miniaturisation of technology is rapidly opening up new possibilities for conservationists and environmental scientists in need of less invasive, easy to deploy solutions. University of Washington researchers have...
13 October 2020
To celebrate the first Black Mammalogists Week (starting Sunday, September 13th), we talked to four of the amazing Black scientists behind this event! Find out what they had to say about their favorite (and most...
10 September 2020
Today, WWF conservation engineering intern Ashley Rosen shares insight into the process of redesigning a camera mount for FLIR thermal cameras used by rangers in the fight against poaching. Ashley's design will become a...
24 August 2020
Our first season of Tech Tutors may have wrapped, but the connections and collaborations from these episodes are still going strong! Today, we're sharing Tech Tutor presenter Laure Joanny's recap of the most important...
20 August 2020
Today, Sustainable Fishing Challenges group leader Daniel Steadman discusses how fishing gear itself could benefit from fresh technological innovations to prevent both environmental damage and damage to species and...
19 August 2020
Funding
Protecting elephants from conservation's most pressing issues like poaching and human-wildlife conflict requires big, bold, and innovative solutions. Hackster.io, Smart Parks, Edge Impulse, Microsoft, and several other...
11 August 2020
Since 2016, ZSL’s Instant Detect team have been working on improving metal detecting sensors for anti-poaching. The team believe that using metal detecting sensors will provide a highly targeted detection of potential...
10 August 2020
As we launch our new Sustainable Fishing Challenges group in the WILDLABS community, we are excited to welcome Daniel Steadman, the group manager, to give us an overview of three major areas in which #tech4wildlife...
4 August 2020
In this case study from herpetologist Emily Taylor, we learn about the best methods and gear used to track snakes, lizards, and other reptiles and amphibians via radio-telemetry, and how these techniques have changed...
31 July 2020
What is it like to track endangered species using drones? In this blog post from Wildlife Drones, Dr. Debbie Saunders travels to New Zealand to track the Kākāpō, an extemely rare and elusive bird of which approximately...
8 July 2020
In this three-part WILDLABS feature article series, we take a look at the various technologies used to fight the greatest threat to wild condors, lead poisoning, explore the innovations changing the ways we study and...
2 July 2020
In this three-part WILDLABS feature article, we're taking a look at the various technologies used to fight the greatest threat to wild condors, lead poisoning, explore the innovations that may change the way we study...
25 June 2020
February 2023
January 2023
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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I am working on a prototype to detect and alert for temic & karbadust. They are used for the poisoning of waterholes in South Africa.... |
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Sensors | 5 months 1 week ago | |
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... |
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Camera Traps, Climate Change, Community Base, Connectivity, Emerging Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Sensors, Wildlife Crime | 5 months 2 weeks ago | |
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... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict, Camera Traps, Sensors | 5 months 3 weeks ago | |
Featuring some of the very best spider video you'll ever see.. @JayStafstrom has been pushing the boundaries of camera technology,... |
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Camera Traps, Sensors | 5 months 3 weeks ago | |
I always thought a tracker that attached like a slap bracelet would be sweet. |
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Emerging Tech, Footprint Identification Technique (FIT), Sensors | 5 months 4 weeks ago | |
I came across this which looks like it might work for you.Others have mentioned Davis. I used the Davis vantage pro2 in a previous life, and the cabled version was about... |
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Sensors | 6 months ago | |
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. |
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Community Base, Emerging Tech, Marine Conservation, Protected Area Management Tools, Sensors | 6 months 1 week ago | |
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 | 6 months 2 weeks ago | |
Cheers @Lars_Holst_Hansen , yes, the antenna foam spacer idea certainly helped us a bit. I completely agree though that ruggedness, especially on a polar bear (a bit different... |
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Biologging, Sensors | 7 months 2 weeks ago | |
Hi everyone, I wanted to provide an update on behalf of Wildlife Acoustics regarding some of these comments in this thread. As some of you may know, we have just announced... |
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Acoustics, Sensors | 8 months ago | |
This was one of my all time favourite Variety Hour talks! @wschan gave us an awesome walk through the open-source low cost acceleratometer... |
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Biologging, Open Source Solutions, Sensors | 8 months ago | |
Makes sense if you have the cash... |
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Biologging, Climate Change, Sensors, Build Your Own Data Logger Community, Emerging Tech | 8 months 2 weeks ago |
HWC Tech Challenge Update: Meet the Judges
20 October 2017 12:00am
Download New Conservation Tech Guidelines: Camera Traps, Acoustics and LiDAR
11 October 2017 12:00am
Kids, Drones & Science At The Water’s Edge
4 October 2017 12:00am
Saliva-powered paper battery
26 September 2017 2:55pm
How to lose a BRUV in 10 days
26 September 2017 12:00am
DAS: A Scaleable Solution For Protected Area Management
26 September 2017 12:00am
Elephant's Banquet
19 September 2017 12:00am
IoT breakthrough - applications for wildlife conservation?
15 September 2017 3:10pm
Thermal cameras and wildlife
26 July 2017 6:51pm
21 August 2017 12:17pm
Abstract here from the IMC Congress in Perth, they found the higher-res versions are much better than the less expensive (e.g. iphone) versions when it comes to finding animals.
Now you see me: How thermal imaging increases detection of cryptic nocturnal mammals in tropical regions
Avril Underwood1 , Mia Dehre-Miller2 1. James Cook University, Smithfield, Queensland, Australia 2.
University of Lancaster, Lancaster, United Kingdom Accurate measures of species abundance and distribution underpin effective wildlife management and conservation strategies. Obtaining these data is very challenging when researching the cryptic nocturnal arboreal mammals of in the dense forest of the Wet Tropics. Our research shows that using a hand-held thermal imager significantly increases the detection rate of all mid-sized arboreal mammals when compared to the most commonly used method of spotlighting. We determine the optimal environmental and mechanical parameters for thermal imaging, and we investigate ‘cost-versus-result’ of hand-held imaging devices currently available on the market. We suggest that hand-held thermal imaging is a great emerging technology for cryptic arboreal mammal detection across tropical forested regions and beyond.
21 August 2017 12:20pm
My own experience is with the FLIR iphone attachment, just informal testing, but hasn't been that great at finding animals. I also think it would work better in the early AM. In the evening there can still be a lot of rocks and trees still warm from the sun.
Funding Opportunity: Leverage space technology for wildlife protection
6 July 2017 12:56pm
Leverage Space Technology for Wildlife Protection with the European Space Agency Kick-start Grant
5 July 2017 12:00am
Trialing Audiomoth to detect the hidden threats under the canopies of Belize
27 June 2017 12:00am
Biomaker Challenge - up to £1000 support for prototyping sensors and instrumentation related to biology
19 June 2017 3:46pm
19 June 2017 3:51pm
Hey Jenny,
Thanks for sharing this, looks really interesting! In addition to WILDLABS members potentially getting involved, it'd be great to hear about some of the projects that get developed through the challenge. It looks like they're all going to be shared openly on github! Perhaps you could highlight or direct folks here to any as they emerge that you think might be particularly relevant?
Steph
19 June 2017 4:03pm
Hi Steph
Sure - we'll have the projects confirmed by 30 June and I can highlight ones that might be of interest!
Jenny
From the Field: Eric Becker and designing sensors for wildlife
22 May 2017 12:00am
acoustics for Human-Wildlife Conflict Prevention, Anti-poaching, and more
27 April 2017 6:43pm
From the Field: Dr Raman Sukumar and Technology Developments Needed to Conserve Elephants
5 April 2017 12:00am
Lasers in the Jungle Somewhere: How Airborne LiDAR Reveals the Structure of Forests
4 April 2017 12:00am
Heat Maps
2 March 2016 3:18pm
31 March 2017 10:45am
Hi @AdamBloch
I'd like to know more about your setup. I'm monitoring temperatures on a nature reserve using an array of 100 iButton Thermocron temperature sensors. I'm interested in what the benefits of using Arduino and Raspberry Pi might be. I need to collect my sensors in and read through a USB device. Then there's the interpolation and plotting of the data, and I'm particularly interested in how you are filtering and querying your data i.e. 'selectable [time?] range'.
Thanks
31 March 2017 9:49pm
Hi Thomas
We are mapping a very small area in real time. The data rate is controlled by the time it take to read all the DS18B20s. The logger I use in the Octogons is using about 90 sensors and refreshes about every 5 to 15 seconds. The data is store as a CSV in series of files.
Best thing to do is drop me a PM and your number.
Many thanks
Adam
15 Risks and Opportunities for Global Conservation
31 March 2017 12:00am
From the Field: Paul Millhouser and tracking migrating kestrels with low cost, light based geolocators
29 March 2017 12:00am
The Noise Egg: Testing the Effects of Underwater Noise on Aquatic Animals
27 March 2017 12:00am
From the Field: María José Bolgeri and tech to alleviate Puma-Human conflict
22 March 2017 12:00am
Photogrammetry: mapping caves and other environments
19 January 2017 11:46am
8 March 2017 1:49pm
Hi Ollie,
You can do the photogrammetry without a drone. You just need a tripod and a camera. The drone is useful because it can move to locations automatically ensuring that you have correct overlap but in caves you obviously will not have the GPS signal you need for most off the shelf units to navigate.
Thom mentioned to me a device called a Zebedee, which should do what you are hoping for. I don't know anyone who has one though and I'm afraid I don't have a LiDAR unit to lend.
Tom
8 March 2017 1:54pm
A colleague showed me this last week - laser scanning in Nottingham's 'caves' - scroll down and check out the video.
http://tparchaeology.co.uk/caves/caveswebsite/index.htm
8 March 2017 2:03pm
For good measure, here's some cave survey porn of Hang Son Doong cave in China.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOH4gbW18Ts
#Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge: Our favourites from 2016
1 March 2017 12:00am
A hive of activity – CAD designers are crafting an open future for bees
20 December 2016 12:00am
Conservation Leadership Programme 2017 Award
21 November 2016 12:00am
5 Smart Technologies That Will Crack Down On Wildlife Trafficking
14 November 2016 12:00am
Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act grants via USFWS
8 November 2016 12:00am
How do Wildlife Crime Experts view Remote Sensing Technologies used to Combat Illegal Wildlife Crime?
7 November 2016 12:00am
Using GoPro cameras? Why not get sponsored by them?
29 December 2015 9:40pm
31 October 2016 2:47pm
Sport, Music, Event, Film/Photo are the only options I see on that link - nothing for conservation research.
1 November 2016 1:09pm
All of it can be applied to conservation though!
1 November 2016 1:45pm
I am not suggesting that GoPro cameras do not have applications in conservation, but if you follow the link you posted you will find questions being asked that a conservation project will be unable to answer.
26 July 2017 8:33pm
Oh, cool! It'd be interesting seeing if it could be used for tracking as well. I've used some handheld cameras and looked at footprints, but those disappeared pretty quickly.