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Wildlife Crime / Feed

Wildlife crime is a complicated challenge, so it's no wonder that the conservation technology community has explored solutions with every type of technology, all with the aim of predicting, preventing, and stopping crimes like poaching, illegal logging and fishing, and the sale of animal products like ivory. Join our Wildlife Crime group to meet others who are working on potential solutions to this global challenge and to add your own expertise to the conversation! 

discussion

Workshop: Ivory Identification, Cambridge UK

When: 9:00- 5:30 Sep 21, 2018  Where: Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge Contact: James H....

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Thanks for posting @StephODonnell . Do you happen to know if remote participation is feasible for community members not in Cambridge, and if workshop materials can be shared?

 

Hi @Rachel+Kramer 

I'll scout around and see what capacity for remote participate there might be. Leave it with me!
Steph

Hi,

I went to this workshop, led by Sonia O'Connor and James Barrett, and I would recommend it. Both Sonia and James have many years of experience identifying ivories (including elephant, hippo, walrus, mammoth, narwhal, sperm whale etc..), ivory substitutes (such as vegetable ivory, a type of nut), ivory imitations (e.g. bones) and ivory fakes (e.g. plastics). Sonia in particular has worked with CITES and is keen on training more people working in IWT.

A few interesting messages taken from the session:
- having physical identification as the first step before more complex analysis, such as DNA testing, is more cost and time-effective and can aid front line law enforcement.
- ivory often refers to elephant tusks, but it essentially includes all forms of teeth.
- ivory patterning varies between species.
- the same material can look different depending on what's happened to it.
- identification errors can be made between young elephant tusks and hippo canines (they look really similar!).
- deliberate ageing of ivory, e.g. through staining, can be obvious from the dark colour.
- elephant ivory could be dimpled to make it look like walrus ivory.
- a worked piece of ivory, e.g. a figurine, could be made of a combination of different ivories (elephant, hippo etc.) and/or bone.
- some Japanese carvers have turned to using vegetable ivory as an ethical alternative to elephant ivory.
- over time, ivory and plastic discolour very differently.
- UV lights don't always help to ID between ivory and plastic, as some plastics are florescent!

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event

Tusk Conservation Lecture 2018: Ted Schmitt

Tusk
Tusk are delighted to announce that their Tusk Conservation Lecture 2018 speaker will be Ted Schmitt of Vulcan Inc, Paul G Allen Philanthropies. He will speak about advancing Innovation in conservation, a talk that will...

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event

Ocean Hack: San Francisco, 10-11th September, 2018

One Ocean Collab
A 48 hr pop up innovation lab for the ocean, bringing together a mix of designers, strategists, technologists, engineers, scientists, marine conservationists, educators, artists and buisness talent to co-create...

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discussion

Open-source intelligence program?

Hey all, do you know of any open-source intelligence, data-management and networking programs to quickly visualize company/name interactions in wildlife trade? Im looking...

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Hi Maike,

SMART (Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool) is open source and has an upcoming intelligence plugin that will cater for your needs. Take a look at http://smartconservationtools.org/ and reach out to them for more information.

Kind regards,

Alasdair

Hi Maike!

I used ORA Pro which was developed by Carnegie Mellon University. The 'lite' version is free to use and similar to IBM - http://www.casos.cs.cmu.edu/projects/ora/software.php

Best,

Sarah

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discussion

SMART Trainers

Hello, Does anyone have contact information for SMART trainers that would be itnerested in a short term consultancy for the FFI Liberia program? We are looking to start a SMART...

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discussion

IWT Horizon Scan

Due to the magnitude and complexity of the Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT), conservationists are often only able to fight crises on the ground. To support a more proactive approach,...

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event

Technology Empowered Conservation Lecture Series

Paul Jepson
New technological forces look set to transform biodiversity science. This series will showcase and discuss cutting-edge applications happening in Oxford and beyond. It is guaranteed to inspire and challenge. 

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article

Instant Detect 2.0: A Connected Future for Conservation

Sam Seccombe
‘The Field’… Say the words ‘The Field’ to a group of conservationists and it will immediately conjure up vivid memories of everything from sticky wet rainforests to burning dusty deserts. What’s more, it’s almost...

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funding

Wildlife innovation grants available!

World Wildlife Fund
The WWF Wildlife Practice has a small amount of funding available to provide grants of around €10,000 to support key innovative ideas.  

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article

Congratulations to Zoohackathon winners, team ODINN!

Zoological Society of London
Following the UK Government’s landmark announcement of plans to introduce a complete ban on the domestic trade in ivory, it was fitting that a new machine learning product designed to tackle the supply end of this...

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article

DAS: A Scaleable Solution For Protected Area Management

Camellia Williams
The Domain Awareness System (DAS) is a revolution in monitoring technology, creating real-time awareness of protected areas assets. This technology has the potential to completely change standard monitoring procedures...

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discussion

Get registered~ Zoohackathon 2017 is around the corner!

We are hosting the 2nd Zoohackathon which will take place on September 22-24 in Chicago and San Diego and October 6-8 in London and New Delhi.  Registration is live at all...

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If you know you want to attend and just want to get straight to getting your tickets, here are some easy links for registration:

I'm hearing that tickets are going really fast, so make sure you get in quick if you want to come along! 

 

 

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