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
- @Cris
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Octophin Digital
Senior Developer at Octophin Digital and constant maker.
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- @Durgananda
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- @rowan
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Octophin Digital
Jack of all Trades. I've been a zoo keeper, a conservation geneticist and a web developer who specialises in conservation projects and orgs.
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- 15 Groups
- @IsobelAshbey
- | She/her/hers
Running a Tech for Good initiative at Cambridge Consultants, looking for organisations who need help developing new technology for conservation
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- 8 Discussions
- 5 Groups
- @Rob_Appleby
- | He/him
Wild Spy
Whilst I love everything about WILDLABS and the conservation tech community I am mostly here for the badges!!
- 1 Resources
- 261 Discussions
- 11 Groups
Dr JOhn Read is founder and CEO of Conservation Innovation company Thylation, and founder and director of several adaptive management conservation projects . www.ecologicalhorizons.com, www.thylation.com, www.johnlread.com
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A biologist pursuing a Master's in Computer Science and Telecommunications
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- 1 Discussions
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- 6 Discussions
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Zoological Society London (ZSL)
Technical Project Manager in ZSL's Conservation Technology Unit
- 0 Resources
- 26 Discussions
- 6 Groups
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)
A technologist and a conservationist
- 0 Resources
- 23 Discussions
- 5 Groups
- @Mauricio_Akmentins
- | he/him
National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina (CONICET)
Herpetologist and conservationist, focused on the conservation of the endemic and threatened amphibian species of NW Argentina.
- 1 Resources
- 3 Discussions
- 6 Groups
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Welcome to our new Conservation Tech Showcase, a series highlighting innovative and impactful projects from outstanding organizations around the world.
11 May 2023
The Zoological Society of London, with the support of WILDLABS and the UK Space Agency, are proud to publish this new guide to satellite technologies for tracking wildlife.
17 February 2023
Technology to End the Sixth Mass Extinction. Salary: $104k-144K; Location: Washington DC or Seattle WA, potential hybrid; 5+ years of Full stack development experience; Deadline March 15th - view post for full job...
10 February 2023
Frontiers in Conservation Science is calling for submissions for a Research Topic that aims at examining the paradoxical relationship that has been established in recent years between the flagships of new technology...
10 February 2023
Are you excited by the potential for new technologies to help monitor the natural world? Do you enjoy communicating your passion for technology and nature with diverse audiences? We are seeking an enthusiastic...
2 February 2023
Consultancy opportunity at ZSL for an experienced monitoring specialist to support species monitoring in rewilding landscapes across Europe
31 January 2023
WILDLABS and Fauna & Flora International are seeking an early career Vietnamese conservationist for 12-month paid internship position to grow and support the Southeast Asia regional community in our global...
11 January 2023
As the FieldKit hardware ecosystem grows, Conservify is seeking a Junior Electrical Engineer to assist with testing, troubleshooting, prototype development, and developing production test fixtures for our growing...
9 December 2022
Careers
Conservify is seeking a hands-on Senior Software Engineer with front end and back end experience developing rich web and mobile applications, and a strong desire to build a best-in-class product that stands out in both...
9 December 2022
Conservify is seeking a hands-on Senior Product and Production Manager with strong interpersonal and organizational skills to remotely lead a small seasoned team of thinkers, designers and engineers who are shaping the...
9 December 2022
a technology-led solution to understanding the honeybees of the wasp world
8 December 2022
December 2023
event
11 Products
Recently updated products
97 Products
1 R&D Projects
66 Organisations
Recently updated products
Recently updated R&D Projects
Recently updated organisations
Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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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... |
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Sensors, Camera Traps, Marine Conservation | 4 months 3 weeks ago | |
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 | 4 months 3 weeks 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 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 1 week 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 1 week 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 2 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 | 5 months 3 weeks 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 | 5 months 3 weeks 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 1 week 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 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 | 7 months 2 weeks 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 | 7 months 2 weeks ago |
New Paper - Evaluation of thermal imaging as a tool for assessing occupancy of enclosed nests
13 January 2023 12:06am
The authors "tested the use of a thermal imager to assess the occupancy of enclosed nests, using nest-box populations of small passerines. Based on a thermal image of each nest box, observers were able to predict nest-box occupancy with a combined success rate of 85.9%."
Conservation Technology Intern (Vietnam)
11 January 2023 5:00pm
Help - Innovative ways to track elephant movement
28 October 2022 4:50pm
7 November 2022 12:52am
Hi Tyler,
Would like to introduce you to Ceres Tags products
- Ceres Tags products come in boxes of 5, 10 and 24.
- There are some software partners such as Earthranger, Mapipedia and possibly CiboLabs that would be able to assist you with your mapping vegetation requirements
- Ceres Tag does not require any towers, base stations and infrastructure. This allows you to see any movements from the heard outside of their normal herd (boundary alerts), and you will not be disturbing any of the flora and fauna with infrastructure set up.
- For the timing you are looking at, Ceres Wild pings directly to satellite 24 times a day. For Ceres Trace and Ceres Ranch there are 4 within 24 hours. Taking into consideration, when you set up alert areas, you will get them directly to your phone/laptop via your software of choice
- Ceres Ranch is a reusable tag that has just been launched. Use it on this project, remove the tag and then use the tag on your next project
- The software you choose will assist with the history of your animal movements. Ceres Tag is integrated with 11 software partners and in-development with 18 software partners https://cerestag.com/pages/software-partners
- Understanding it is a short-term project, you would be able to use Ceres Tags products without the additional expense of setting up and removing infrastructure- towers, gateways
- With Ceres Tag, you are purchasing the box of tags and picking a suitable software to deliver the information you require. On average, a box of 10 Ceres Trace Tags, is the same as 1 LoRaWAN tower.
14 December 2022 10:49am
I just came across this interesting paper in which seismic monotoring of animals like elephants was mentioned.
This is the study refered to:
Cheers,
Lars
Junior Electrical Engineer (Hardware)
9 December 2022 5:04pm
Senior Software Engineer
9 December 2022 5:01pm
Senior Product & Production Manager (Maternity Cover)
9 December 2022 3:07pm
Cameras - pros and cons
21 September 2022 2:04pm
23 November 2022 2:58pm
Hi Liz, unfortunately you will still need a Raspberry Pi as host for the OAK-1 camera to reproduce our hardware setup. It's also possible to use another Linux-based system (e.g. Raspberry Pi alternatives), but I didn't test this myself and the setup process will be different to our documentation (and probably not so straightforward). I'm planning to publish the documentation website in the next weeks, but I can already send you detailed information about putting together the hardware if you are still interested.
7 December 2022 1:03am
Hello,
I'm working on a light weight light trap based on Bjerge et al 2021, however I opted to use an ArduCam 64mp (9152 x 6944 resolution). Designed for the pi specifically and at $60 it checks many of your criteria. I haven't put everything together yet so I can't speak for white balance and power usage, but the autofocus appears to work well from initial tests, and it is tiny.
Cheers,
Hubert
8 December 2022 4:06pm
Awesome! it would be great to hear how you get on, maybe you can share your results here when you have them. Is the camera only for the Pi? That could be a problem for scaling as Pis are quite hard to come by at the moment.
PhD - Sensory ecology of vespine wasps
8 December 2022 12:47pm
Tech and Biodiversity Conference, London
15 November 2022 2:07pm
Whats de best open source methane analyzer for soil?
21 October 2022 3:36pm
Rainforest SigFox available for use
26 August 2022 6:09pm
26 September 2022 10:20pm
Hi Roland,
This is really amazing, great to hear about your set-up! I'm just wondering what the overall cost was to set up this system? Just thinking in terms of setting up something similar in other parks and what they should expect with regard to price. Would also be great to hear about the overall effort, e.g., hours/team members required. It would be great to have this act as a blueprint for other organizations/research stations wishing to deploy a similar system within their respective national parks/areas/etc.!
10 October 2022 8:33am
Hi Rolland,
Interested too, but why did you choose SigFox (a private network) rather than LoRa (open network)?
Sigfox currently has some financial troubles that, don't know what it will become in the long term.
18 October 2022 11:55am
Hi Everyone,
We chose sigfox becuase it seems to have better range and is plug-play, whereas LoRa requires more custom programming and updating. Getting a gateway cost us $2000 for a year's lease + deposit. We covered solar power. There are also some 'minigateways' you can purchase but I don't know how they compare in range (plan to test). So far we are happy with the performance, in that it has worked consistency with no outages (once we stabilized the power supply). I think the annual costs are about $10 per tag. We are working on a paper that will describe this in more detail. So far just using for tracking tags but also looking at a trap sensor.
cheers
Roland
Using lidar to 3d scan animal burrows
17 October 2022 4:21pm
17 October 2022 4:23pm
here's an example of what I'm doing.
New paper: Benthic animal-borne sensors & citizen science combine to validate ocean modelling
10 October 2022 4:15pm
"We develop the use of benthic species as animal oceanographers by combining archival (depth, temperature) data from animal-borne tags, passive acoustic telemetry & citizen-science mark-recapture records for the flapper skate in Scotland."
Frontiers Symposium: Digital tools for reversing environmental degradation
5 October 2022 10:23am
Roddenberry Foundation’s Catalyst Fund
4 October 2022 11:13am
MIT engineers build a battery-free, wireless underwater camera
26 September 2022 2:59pm
Mangrove soundscape
27 August 2022 4:57pm
29 August 2022 2:47pm
You might check out the devices listed in the Conservation Tech Directory - you can search for 'acoustic recorder' or 'ARU' or something like that.
The most common off-the-shelf models (other than Frontier Labs' BARLTs mentioned above😊) are Open Acoustic Devices Audiomoths & Hydromoths (which may be particularly useful for you since they come in completely watertight cases that can be stuck underwater for deployments), Wildlife Acoustics' SongMeter series, and Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Swift units.
30 August 2022 10:10pm
Camilo--
Are you interested only in airborne sounds or do you want to deploy hydrophones? That decision would inform a lot of other decisions about your purchase of equipment, as would having a clearer picture of your budget.
23 September 2022 5:39pm
Hi there Camilo,
What an interesting project! If you are looking for a lower cost, but effective tools for acoustic monitoring you might want to look into two options:
SoundTraps - are very commonly used and perform quite well:
SonarPoints - these are also a great instrument option:
Avian nest box monitoring
14 September 2022 2:30pm
14 September 2022 3:08pm
Maybe this is a starting point. Any idea if this product would work inside the box. Kestrel DROP D3 Wireless Temperature, Humidity & Pressure Data Logger https://amzn.eu/d/5VdQwtA
23 September 2022 12:34pm
I'd be interested in any camera monitoring setups that can be used inside a nest box. Most camera traps are too bulky for this purpose. All the devices I've looked at either need a wired connection or a wifi network to transmit images. I want one that can store all info to an SD card and preferably be solar powered. Obviously infrared or starlight sensitivity. Sound recording would be a bonus for some bird monitoring I want to do.
23 September 2022 1:16pm
Done lots of this over the years and it depends on the species really. If you want incubation behaviour and hence success or otherwise using temperature then the Thermocron IButton DS1921G is perfect. The new Blue Maestro is an option I became aware of this year but I haven't tested at scale.
In terms of cameras and endoscopes I've tailored many off the shelf products and built a few from scratch. When I get chance I'll have a look around and see what is still available.
The planet matters. People matter. Location matters.
23 September 2022 12:16pm
Movement Ecology Field Team and Data Coordinator: Osa Conservation [Open until filled)
22 September 2022 11:55pm
Senior Conservation Technology Expert Position (Consultancy) with the Global Wildlife Program
22 September 2022 5:35pm
Workshop: Building UK Partnerships for Conservation Technology
22 September 2022 3:02pm
World Ocean Tech and Innovation Summit
13 September 2022 1:12pm
Catch Up with the Variety Hour: September 2022
6 September 2022 12:31pm
Virtual fencing / Kinetic energy harvesting / Holistic grazing
16 June 2022 7:12am
26 July 2022 11:13am
Hi,
One daily fix is planned for now. This will be challenging enough for KEH :)
Kr, D-
31 July 2022 5:15pm
I see, thanks!
One daily fix is quite limiting.
Do you have an idea how KEH might affect accelerometry?
Cheers,
2 September 2022 11:05am
I don't think KEH would influence accelerometry at all.
One other way to think about it is - the KEH is a movement sensor itself.
The GPS is quite a severe factor in the energy balance of the system, so if the data is perhaps not transmitted constantly, more frequent locks could be achieved. I believe GPS transceivers are becoming more and more efficient and the KEH enabled GPS should become an option soon.
Kr,
D-
Conservation Technology Research Internship
26 August 2022 4:58pm
Ceres Wild Rhino application
22 August 2022 1:29am
29 September 2022 4:05am
Post Doctoral researcher - DNA species detection technology
15 August 2022 4:50pm
Research Technician - Unoccupied Aircraft Systems Pilot and Geospatial Analyst
10 August 2022 10:40pm
3yr Postdoctoral Associate: Remote Sensing and Unoccupied Aircraft Systems
10 August 2022 5:29pm
4 November 2022 5:24pm
Why would you want to avoid alerting the rangers ?
You don't need high tech for this; elephants leave very obvious tracks and sign.