Wildlife crime is one of the greatest challenges facing conservation, and one of the conservation tech world's biggest areas of innovation. With new ideas and solutions constantly being put forth to track and protect species targeted by poachers, manage protected areas and support rangers, and combat the growing online market for illegal wildlife products, the engineers and conservationists working to solve wildlife crime's many challenges rely on tools like machine learning, biologging, camera traps, acoustic monitoring, drones, mobile apps, and more.
This wide variety of overlapping technology makes our Wildlife Crime group a potential melting pot for many of our other communities, and makes it an especially exciting place to find collaborators working in different tech spheres to meet a common goal. Whether you're a camera trap expert looking for information on thermal vision to spot potential poachers, a machine learning expert with the skills to analyze acoustic data for gunshots, or a protected area manager seeking the latest integrated mobile tools, this group can connect you with the right members of our community!
Below, you'll find WILDLABS resources and conversations to help you understand how different technologies are being put to work in the fight against wildlife crime, and what conservation tech practitioners need for these tools to be effective.
Three Tutorials and Videos for Beginners:
- How do I use AI to fight wildlife crime? | Lily Xu, Tech Tutors
- WWF Wildlife Crime Technology Project | Eric Becker, Virtual Meetups
- SmartParks | Laurens de Groot, Virtual Meetups
Three Forum Threads for Beginners:
- Snare detection technologies | Rachel Kramer
- Tools for conservation management | Chris Muashekele
- Looking for Intelligence Database Software | Dexter Oelrichs
Three Articles for Beginners:
- Using AIS data to investigate the world's fishing ports, Max Schofield
- How do Wildlife Crime Experts view Remote Sensing Technologies used to Combat Illegal Wildlife Crime?, Isla Duporge
- Metal Detecting Sensors for Anti-Poaching, Sam Seccombe
Join this group now to get to know our community and start discussing solutions and ideas together!
Header photo: © Frank af Petersens/Save the Elephants
Conservation technology enthusiast
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University of Madras
Research Coordinator
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- @KimLane
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Sustainability Manager for CERES Tag LTD. An animal health company; animal monitoring, conservation, & anti-poaching/ rural crime. Wildlife, livestock, equine & companion. #CeresTrace #CeresWild #CeresRanch #SalusPet
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- @TaliaSpeaker
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WILDLABS
I'm the WILDLABS Research Specialist at WWF-US
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Technologist and Visual storyteller focusing on social, conservations issues.
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Sensing Clues Foundation
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Entrepreneur building AI-driven acoustic monitoring technology for comprehensive wildlife conservation, protection and ecosystem health monitoring.
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- @annie2
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I'm a software developer. I have open source projects in practical object detection and alerting that is well suited for poacher detection and recently I'm working on a sound recorder project that is also suitable for sound localization purposes.
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- @SJaneL
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Wildlife Policy Specialist, experienced in wildlife trade and international policy, research and campaigning.
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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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Working on Human wildlife conflicts and animal invasive species management
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The WCS team in Uganda is working with impacted communities, district leaders and wildlife authorities to come up with innovative solutions to Human Wildlife Conflicts and curb wildlife crimes in our time. Check out...
5 September 2023
Panthera’s Counter Wildlife Crime (CWC) program is one of five thematic, cross-regional programs that sit within its Conservation Science (CS) division. This role acts as a ‘force multiplier’ for the global experts,...
31 May 2023
Scholarships available for training courses focussing on nature restoration in East Africa
21 February 2023
Researchers and conservationists are embarking on a bold initiative to save the world's most trafficked wild mammal — the pangolin
16 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
Careers
The Senior Conservation Technology Specialist will be responsible for providing technical advice and capacity development to GWP project teams on conservation technology, distilling challenges and lessons from project...
22 September 2022
Article
An update on Ceres Tags products that are being used in conservation
22 August 2022
Article
Ceres Tag sends just in time alerts and GPS location to have the power to track and trace.
22 July 2022
This position will support WCS’ training and capacity development work, specifically by supporting the global capacity building efforts of the Learning and Leadership for Conservation (LLC) program, including CLP and...
23 June 2022
Julia Martínez Pardo et al., Published in Biological Conservation
4 June 2022
Authors: Ritwik Kulkarni, Enrico Di Minin
29 May 2022
Mongabay article on the recently launched Centre for Wildlife Forensics in Singapore, noting their successes so far in catching wildlife traffickers and uncovering trafficking routes
29 May 2022
November 2023
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Hi WildLabs,ZSL is looking for Beta testers for Instant Detect 2.0. If you are a conservationist, scientist or wildlife ranger with... |
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Camera Traps, Climate Change, Community Base, Connectivity, Emerging Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Sensors, Wildlife Crime | 4 months 2 weeks ago | |
greetings! i sent you a PM regarding this, feel free to contact me however is most convenient for you - regards,chris |
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Acoustic Monitoring, AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Climate Change, East Africa Community, Wildlife Crime | 5 months ago | |
Seeing the pictures that @lmccaskill uploaded got my brain storming, so to say. Are you working with similar small boats? I was assuming bigger fishing ships that are registered... |
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Drones, Marine Conservation, Wildlife Crime | 5 months 2 weeks ago | |
Hi everyone,I'm new here :)I'm doing my thesis of biology bachelor about Rhino poaching. I wanted to ask here if yu have some articles... |
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AI for Conservation, Ending Wildlife Trafficking Online, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Wildlife Crime | 5 months 3 weeks ago | |
Hi all, In the last couple of months I have started using the Google 'Lens' app on my Android phone and I have been really impressed... |
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Software and Mobile Apps, Wildlife Crime | 7 months ago | |
Hello. I am a PhD candidate at Penn State University. I submitted a post to this group back in March and I am resubmitting... |
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Community Base, Data management and processing tools, Remote Sensing & GIS, Wildlife Crime | 1 year ago | |
Hey all!I am Ayush, a core team member of my school's Robotics Club (Center For Innovation, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras). There... |
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Drones, Sensors, Wildlife Crime, Early Career | 1 year 2 months ago | |
Hi everyone, I'm new here! I'm a UX designer and researcher, and an animal lover. Excited to be part of Conservation Tech here at WildLabs... |
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AI for Conservation, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Software and Mobile Apps, Wildlife Crime | 1 year 2 months ago | |
Thanks for the sharing the information. In India as well solar-powered e-bike for forest guards was piloted (See https://www.thebetterindia.com/267799/nit-karnataka-electric-bike-... |
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Wildlife Crime | 1 year 5 months ago | |
I am happy to share my co-authored paper titled “CITES enforcement information sharing—if you don’t know where you’... |
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Wildlife Crime | 1 year 5 months ago | |
Hello. I have reviewed the questions this am and all the questions on the survey that force a response should have a N/A or "I don't know" option. That... |
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Protected Area Management Tools, Wildlife Crime | 1 year 6 months ago | |
Hi, I've been working on a buoy-mounted underwater acoustic recorder, kinda like what you're talking about. I'll send you a concept note. -harold |
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Wildlife Crime | 1 year 6 months ago |
Video: WCS Uganda innovating Human-Wildlife Conflict solutions
5 September 2023 12:04pm
Artificial Intelligence in African Anti-Poaching Strategy | by Tusk | Jul, 2023 | Medium
12 July 2023 4:59pm
"Artificial Intelligence could be the solution needed to effectively monitor and safeguard vast landscapes across Africa that, up until now, have been protected solely by patrolling." Read Tusk's latest Medium blog on the emergence of AI in conservation
The Wildlife Society Conference
19 June 2023 5:59am
Southeast Asia Counter Wildlife Crime Program Coordinator

31 May 2023 1:00pm
How do I get started with collecting mobile digital data to combat Illegal Wildlife Trade?
16 May 2023 11:59pm
Apply to Beta test Instant Detect 2.0
11 May 2023 10:55am
EarthRanger User Conference
27 April 2023 5:52am
Artificial Intelligence and Conservation with Lily Xu
26 April 2023 8:41pm
WWF's recent Fuller Seminar Series on Artificial Intelligence and Conservation featured some familiar faces from the WILDLABS community, including our past Tech Tutor Lily Xu! Check out her presentation talking about AI-based causal reasoning and how it can be applied to conservation challenges.
Anti-poaching tech vulnerable to cyber attacks, study finds | ITWeb
26 April 2023 2:48pm
While tech deployment has often been hailed for playing a critical role in the fight against poaching, these technologies bring with them the risk of cyber attacks. This is based on a study conducted by Orange Cyberdefense Academy’s Christelle Steyn, as part of her thesis titled: “Towards a Critical Review of Cybersecurity Risks in Anti-Poaching Systems in South Africa”.
Congo Basin activity?
30 March 2023 9:14pm
Drones for IUU (illegal fishing activities & vessel monitoring)
20 March 2023 6:00am
11 April 2023 5:44am
Fantastic news, and so great to see it having a positive impact immediately. I am hoping for the same effectiveness here!
11 April 2023 5:48am
Hi Frank! Thanks so much for your reply. Yes I have been looking into the same sort of workflow as with camera traps etc and seem to be getting somewhere (although am yet to have my own data set with which to check!).
Yes, with the transponder issue, actually NONE of the boats here have them! There has been a push to get boats to install them further down the coast, but it was marred by the usual corruption and forceless enforcement. So everything will be visual, rather than working on any signal given out by the boats themselves. I am looking into ai programs that can analyse footage and as you say, it can be done with species so I see no reason it cannot be done with vessels given the parameters to look for
14 April 2023 12:57am
Seeing the pictures that @lmccaskill uploaded got my brain storming, so to say. Are you working with similar small boats? I was assuming bigger fishing ships that are registered somewhere. If the boats are not registered and there are no existing photos of them, and you want to identify the individual boats, you'll need to build your own catalogue to train an AI.
However / in addition, if the boats have written text on them with a name or a code or number, like in the pictures, then it should be ridiculously easy to identify boats. No AI needed. I discovered recently that my laptop has started showing find results based on text in photos. If different boats are of the same model, again like in the pictures, then there is nothing else left than what is written on them ... well, perhaps the color scheme.
... or perhaps face recognition if the image quality allows it. But then you'll be at square 1 again with training an AI.
Rhino horns in medicine
2 April 2023 2:22pm
How do I select an ivory sampling method to generate intelligence data?
15 March 2023 11:56am
Google Lens as a citizen's tool to report IWT
24 February 2023 9:30am
Mobilising East African nature restoration professionals
21 February 2023 3:57pm
Operation Pangolin launches to save world's most trafficked wild mammal
16 February 2023 7:51pm
17 February 2023 1:50am
Hiring Full Stack Developer at Conservation X Labs
10 February 2023 5:35pm
New Paper - The sound of the illegal: Applying bioacoustics for long-term monitoring of illegal cattle in protected areas
12 January 2023 5:20pm
This study uses passive acoustic monitoring to record the patterns of illegal cattle occurrence within protected areas in the Brazilian Pantanal.
Frontiers Symposium: Digital tools for reversing environmental degradation
5 October 2022 10:23am
Senior Conservation Technology Expert Position (Consultancy) with the Global Wildlife Program
22 September 2022 5:35pm
Survey for Doctoral Research on Poaching in Protected Areas
29 August 2022 10:43pm
Ceres Wild Rhino application
22 August 2022 1:29am
29 September 2022 4:05am
CERES TAG
22 July 2022 3:36am
A Triphibian Surveillance Vehicle
9 July 2022 2:23pm
Hello there
1 July 2022 5:00pm
Program Coordinator - Learning and Leadership for Conservation (LLC)
23 June 2022 2:45pm
New wildlife forensics lab - Singapore
29 May 2022 12:34pm
Solar-powered anti-poaching motorbikes
15 February 2021 12:55pm
5 October 2021 5:05am
Electric motorcycles definitely have advantages in the bush, and I would like to see more of that! Apart from the advantages mentioned by that site, the low speed torque and clutchless nature of electric drives make it a natural for rough terrain.
The bikes you linked to show their purebred sports/competition pedigree. Workhorse motorcycles for the rough look very different, for instance the German and Russian sidecar bikes of WW2, and the scooters used in farms today in SE Asia (especially Vietnam) often tow trailers or have sidecars and they handle offroad conditions well enough. Interdiction in flagrante delecti is where speed and agility are paramount, but I don't know how often that occurs, or if it is desireable.
They sure do look like fun though.
11 October 2021 11:17am
That an additional tool but I imagine that it will be only efficient in open terrain and mostly in southern African rainforest protected area. Not sure that it will be a game changer but might bring new ideas, let see how it goes.
2 April 2022 12:14pm
Thanks for the sharing the information. In India as well solar-powered e-bike for forest guards was piloted (See https://www.thebetterindia.com/267799/nit-karnataka-electric-bike-forest-surveillance-kudremukh-battery-range-specs/). It seems like a good technology but it has to be tested widely on different forest terrains...
25 April 2023 5:08pm
greetings!
i sent you a PM regarding this, feel free to contact me however is most convenient for you -
regards,
chris