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
- @alexrood
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WILDLABS & World Wide Fund for Nature/ World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
I'm the WILDLABS Communications and Community Management Associate Specialist at WWF-US
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- @TaliaSpeaker
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WILDLABS & World Wide Fund for Nature/ World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
I'm the WILDLABS Research Specialist at WWF-US
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Serendipity Wildlife Foundation
CEO, Serendipity Wildlife Foundation
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Fauna & Flora
Countering poaching and IWT
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Worked as a mechanical engineer for a defence co, then software engineer, then for a research lab specialising in underwater robotics.
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2023 Bachelor Degree Graduate from the College of African Wildlife Management, Mweka.
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Zoologist, Ecologist, Conservation Biologist
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WILDLABS & Fauna & Flora
I'm the Executive Manager at WILDLABS.
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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 a Raspberry Pi based sound localizing ARU project
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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
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Wildlife Protection Solutions (WPS)
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A set of highly discriminating STR DNA markers developed in a collaboration between the SASA wildlife forensics lab and University of Leicester researchers is being used to detect laundering of wild peregrine falcons...
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Thanks, @Drue+Freeman . You raise excellent points, here. In my experience with projects that use protected area monitoring and management software such as the... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 1 month ago | |
Hello - I wrote up a lessons learned from the Hack for Wildlife that we ran in Chicago. https://medium.com/@mygshah/i-just-ran-my-first-hackathon-you-can-too-... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 3 months ago | |
Hi Isla, The 3 threats are all situational and location dependent. For example, in South Africa there is a very well established muti industry and huge muti markets in KwaZulu... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 3 months ago | |
Wildlife Crime group, A set of Training Guidelines for Anti Poaching Field Rangers were launched... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 3 months ago | |
Hi everyone, Isla has shared the results of this survey in a new article in our Resources area. You can read her full analysis of the survey results here: https... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 6 months ago | |
That paper is available on Sci Hub. |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 9 months ago | |
Hi Rachel, the intended audience is individuals and organizations working on tech/innovative solutions to protect wildlife, although the principles of partnership building in... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 9 months ago | |
I just saw this article about embedding GPS trackers in fake turtle eggs. It reminded me of the Nat Geo story from last year where they did... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 9 months ago | |
It sounds like @David+Baisch at Conservation X Labs just ordered a SCiO spec and developer's kit to test its sensitivity. They're interested in ... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 9 months ago | |
Hello all, A new rhino poaching report is out by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. ... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 10 months ago | |
For those who are interested in following changes in rhino poaching numbers in South Africa, I highly reccommend this website. They post... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 11 months ago | |
Here's a few apps relevant to combatting wildlife crime. 1. ENV- Report Wildlife Crime - This app specifically focuses on... |
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Wildlife Crime | 8 years 1 month ago |
Measurements for species vulnerability to overharvesting
20 May 2024 3:06pm
Mass Detection of Wildlife Snares Using Airborne Synthetic Radar
7 January 2024 6:50am
20 May 2024 8:05am
Yes, it is really important to distinguish "noise" from real snares.
Having rangers respond to false positives will really be detrimental to the whole project. Too many false positive resulting in them going out and not finding snare will in the long term mean that they will not respond to distant snare alerts, assuming that they might just be metal cans etc.
Classification of targets will be dependent on the interaction of the target with the 4 polarizations of the radio waves of the radar signal and the certainty of classification will be displayed eg. :
Target-Snare; Location: -31.71130, 24.56327; Classification Accuracy: 99%, Time Detected: 08:53
Target-Bicycle; Location: -31.71130, 24.56327; Classification Accuracy: 32%, Time Detected: 08:55
Target-Chainsaw; Location: -31.71130, 24.56327; Classification Accuracy: 40%, Time Detected: 08:53
Target-Aluminum can; Location: -31.71130, 24.56327; Classification Accuracy: 80%, Time Detected: 08:55
These detections will be sent as alerts to rangers, EarthRanger will monitor the response to them and what the rangers found and exactly where, together with an uploaded photograph of what was found. These will be fed into the detection and classification algorithms to result in a constant improvement of detection and classification under different circumstances
20 May 2024 8:11am
Thank you so much for your support. I am finding it really difficult to find the funding for the initial development. We need lots of engineering time to refine our detection and trial it in ever more complex habitats. We really need money for a well-qualified electronic engineer competent in signal processing to work on this full-time as my PhD student, has to hold down a full-time job as Radar lead for a satellite company.
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Snare detection technologies
23 May 2017 4:19pm
5 February 2019 1:25am
I’m very interested in this topic. I know the thread is a couple of years old, so I’m wondering if there have been any recent tech breakthroughs or new suggestions.
5 October 2019 2:11am
Hi Dave,
How did the trial with the dogs go?
Chris
20 March 2024 7:12pm
I am interested in expanding our capability and understanding of snare detection by canines. We have two canines working in Asia that have successfully detected snares in training scenarios. However, final protocols for training and deployment are being developed and integrated into the team's capability.
A potential enhancement is to add technology that supports the canine's detection capability.
Here's what you missed at World Wildlife Day 2024
7 March 2024 9:02pm
15 March 2024 2:42pm
Species ID Needs?
19 February 2024 7:55pm
23 February 2024 2:10pm
Hello Nadia,
A forensic genetic challenge exists when DNA is destroyed by processes used in manufacturing of derivative animal products, preventing law enforcement in identification of protected species. Alternative methods such as lipid profiles or isotope analysis unique to certain species may be possible but require voucher specimens that may or may not be available and methods that have not been tested or peer reviewed. Examples below:
- derivative products made from endangered shark squalene (eg. Liver oil capsules).
- derivative products made from lion bone and tiger bone (eg. lion bone cake and tiger wine).
This is a law enforcement issue and would like to discuss possible solutions.
1 March 2024 2:27am
Hi Scott, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts here! It would be great to learn more about this, would you be interested in finding a time to chat? Thanks!
SMART Partnership Director
21 February 2024 4:32pm
Senior Software Engineer, Skylight
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New DNA tests achieve first convictions for raptor thefts
13 February 2024 7:12pm
Rapid onsite DNA test identifies bushmeat at airport
6 February 2024 3:47pm
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.
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.
Presentation opportunity: Text analysis for conservation (NACCB 2024)
8 January 2024 4:05pm
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)
Update on SEE Shell App to identify illegal tortoiseshell products
14 December 2023 10:00pm
Master Project Collaboration/Ideas!
4 November 2023 10:37pm
4 November 2023 10:58pm
My email address: [email protected]
14 December 2023 9:35pm
Hi Zach,
Our organization (SEE Turtles) has a campaign working on the illegal tortoiseshell trade around the world called Too Rare To Wear. We are going to be updating our Global Tortoiseshell Report next year and one of the gaps we have in data is in China, where the illegal trade is now happening most frequently on platforms like WeChat.
We'd be interested in discussing with you if interested in how we might be able to gather some data on this trade in the country. I'm including a couple of links below about the program and the last report and will reach out by email.
-Brad
Too Rare To Wear — SEE Turtles
Too Rare To Wear is a campaign that aims to end demand for tortoiseshell products around the world.
SEE TurtlesTurtleshell Research — SEE Turtles
Too Rare To Wear has published two reports on the global tortoiseshell trade. Learn more about this trade and where it is happening.
SEE TurtlesICOTEQ launch TAGRANGER® system of products
23 November 2023 1:25pm
Creating Awareness on Bushmeat Offences Using Local Barazas and SMS
14 November 2023 6:44pm
Looking for tips about masters in Wildlife forensics and possible places to get some work experience.
10 September 2016 10:21am
5 November 2023 10:35am
Did you find anything?
7 November 2023 8:48pm
I have not personally done this program but I was considering it at one time. The University of Florida has a virtual wildlife forensics program that I have heard great things about!
8 November 2023 1:30am
Yes, I considered that one as well. At the time of this post (2016) the full masters wasn't available yet, only the online certificate courses. Unfortunately, both the masters and certificate courses were to expensive for me at the time.
Insight; a secure online platform designed for sharing experiences of conservation tool use.
7 November 2023 1:01pm
A secure platform designed for those working to monitor & protect natural resources. Insight facilitates sharing experience, knowledge & tools to increase efficiency & effectiveness in conservation. By sharing we reduce time & money spent to find, test, & implement solutions.
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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
18 May 2024 2:42pm
I really hope you get this funding! You are so right about increasing the cost of poaching as a deterrent (snares destroyed, investment in snare cables and logistics all for nothing....) - hopefully you are going to want to trial this system in moist tropical rainforests next - hope you decide Kerinci Seblat, Sumatra an ideal candidate site! (Yes, I am very, very enthusiastic)