With new technologies revolutionizing data collection, wildlife researchers are becoming increasingly able to collect data at much higher volumes than ever before. Now we are facing the challenges of putting this information to use, bringing the science of big data into the conservation arena. With the help of machine learning tools, this area holds immense potential for conservation practices. The applications range from online trafficking alerts to species-specific early warning systems to efficient movement and biodiversity monitoring and beyond.
However, the process of building effective machine learning tools depends upon large amounts of standardized training data, and conservationists currently lack an established system for standardization. How to best develop such a system and incentivize data sharing are questions at the forefront of this work. There are currently multiple AI-based conservation initiatives, including Wildlife Insights and WildBook, that are pioneering applications on this front.
This group is the perfect place to ask all your AI-related questions, no matter your skill level or previous familiarity! You'll find resources, meet other members with similar questions and experts who can answer them, and engage in exciting collaborative opportunities together.
Just getting started with AI in conservation? Check out our introduction tutorial, How Do I Train My First Machine Learning Model? with Daniel Situnayake, and our Virtual Meetup on Big Data. If you're coming from the more technical side of AI/ML, Sara Beery runs an AI for Conservation slack channel that might be of interest. Message her for an invite.
Header Image: Dr Claire Burke / @CBurkeSci
Explore the Basics: AI
Understanding the possibilities for incorporating new technology into your work can feel overwhelming. With so many tools available, so many resources to keep up with, and so many innovative projects happening around the world and in our community, it's easy to lose sight of how and why these new technologies matter, and how they can be practically applied to your projects.
Machine learning has huge potential in conservation tech, and its applications are growing every day! But the tradeoff of that potential is a big learning curve - or so it seems to those starting out with this powerful tool!
To help you explore the potential of AI (and prepare for some of our upcoming AI-themed events!), we've compiled simple, key resources, conversations, and videos to highlight the possibilities:
Three Resources for Beginners:
- Everything I know about Machine Learning and Camera Traps, Dan Morris | Resource library, camera traps, machine learning
- Using Computer Vision to Protect Endangered Species, Kasim Rafiq | Machine learning, data analysis, big cats
- Resource: WildID | WildID
Three Forum Threads for Beginners:
- I made an open-source tool to help you sort camera trap images | Petar Gyurov, Camera Traps
- Batch / Automated Cloud Processing | Chris Nicolas, Acoustic Monitoring
- Looking for help with camera trapping for Jaguars: Software for species ID and database building | Carmina Gutierrez, AI for Conservation
Three Tutorials for Beginners:
- How do I get started using machine learning for my camera traps? | Sara Beery, Tech Tutors
- How do I train my first machine learning model? | Daniel Situnayake, Tech Tutors
- Big Data in Conservation | Dave Thau, Dan Morris, Sarah Davidson, Virtual Meetups
Want to know more about AI, or have your specific machine learning questions answered by experts in the WILDLABS community? Make sure you join the conversation in our AI for Conservation group!
- @luciana.rocha
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- @julianagc
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With a background in biology, consulting, and education, I enjoy combining my many passions in applying ML and AI to biodiversity conservation.
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Terrestrial Ecologist
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I am the executive director of FishEye Collaborative, a non-profit developing underwater bioacoustic technologies and methods to grow our understanding of marine ecosystems.
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- @marinejoly
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Associate Professor in Cognitive Ethology (University of Portsmouth, UK), I am interested in primate behaviour and cognition. I am seeking new avenues to investigate animal cognition and address conservation issues.
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WildData Annotation Lab
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I am actively interested in pollinator ecology, monitoring, and conservation and the use of cutting-edge artificial intelligence tools for my research. https://vargaszilay.hu/
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- @kbubnicki
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Ecologist, data scientist, and programmer with over 13 years of professional experience. Open source and Linux enthusiast. Researcher at the Mammal Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, and CEO of the Open Science Conservation Fund.
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- @bissembert
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ReEarth AI
Tech guy, Ethicist, Vitalist and Wanderer
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- @mdorigo
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- @stefan_istrate
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Machine Learning Researcher & Nature Photographer. Building conservation tech for biodiversity monitoring at Wildlife Insights.
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Society for Conservation GIS
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Article
#Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge: Our Favourites from 2019
WILDLABS Team
Happy World Wildlife Day! To celebrate, this week we've asked our community to share photos showing how they are using tech in the field or the lab, using the #Tech4Wildlife hashtag.
3 March 2019
Article
Using Swiss AI and Drones to Count African Wildlife
WILDLABS Team
After a promising first run in Namibia, a Swiss project could aid savanna conservation using drones and automatic image analysis.
18 February 2019
Article
Jacqueline Ramos explains how artificial intelligence can help to track and prevent chimpanzee trafficking across the globe.
6 February 2019
Article
The Open Data Institute and the Office for AI are partnering to explore how data trusts could help to solve environmental, societal and industry challenges by enabling increased access to data while retaining trust....
31 January 2019
Funding
The Ecosulis Rewilding Tech Challenge
Cain Blythe
With the aim of advancing rewildling-related technology in the UK and introducing new talent and ideas into the field of rewildling, Ecosulis is thrilled to announce the launch of their first ever Rewilding Tech...
14 January 2019
Article
Canopy cameras shed new light on monkey business in Brazil
WILDLABS Admin
A team of Brazilian biologists supported by the Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP) is unlocking the secrets of one of the world’s most fragile and threatened biodiversity hotspots thanks to the success of a...
22 November 2018
Article
Ted Schmitt joined us for a lunchtime lecture in which he shared his experiences working across Africa the past five years with protected area managers, anti-trafficking organisations, and scientists to effectively...
22 November 2018
Article
Machine learning is widely recognized as the solution to camera trap data processing, but a user-friendly and broadly-accessible system for putting this tech to use has not yet been developed. In this case study,...
1 October 2018
Article
In this case study, conservation ecologist Ayesha Tulloch takes us behind the scenes of her recent paper, which came out in Nature Ecology & Evolution earlier this month. In this paper, Ayesha and her team present a...
20 August 2018
Article
Thermal Sensor Project Update: Testing with live animals at the San Diego Zoo
Arribada Initiative
The winners of our Human Wildlife Conflict Tech Challenge are offering regular updates throughout the year to chronicle their failures, successes and what they learn along the way as they develop their solutions. In...
27 July 2018
Funding
$90K in grants from the Con X Tech Prize
WILDLABS Admin
Looking to prototype or pilot a new conservation tech idea or approach? Conservation X Labs is running an idea competition for teams to create a first draft (i.e. prototype) of their conservation solution. 20 finalists...
11 June 2018
Article
HWC Tech Challenge: Thermopile Sensor Project
Arribada Initiative
Conflict between humans and wildlife is increasing as human communities expand and wild habitats are destroyed, prompting need for new mitigation techniques. As a winner of the Human Wildlife Conflict Tech Challenge,...
19 April 2018
June 2025
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Maximilian Sittinger
event
Nalini
July 2025
October 2025
event
Lacey Hughey and 3 more
November 2023
October 2023
event
Stephanie O'Donnell
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Sasha Sebright
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Sasha Sebright
73 Products
Recently updated products
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| Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hi Simon,We (Reneco International Wildlife Consultants) have an ongoing collaboration with a local University (Abu Dhabi, UAE) for developing AI tools (cameratrap/drone... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Animal Movement, Camera Traps, Citizen Science, Connectivity, Drones, Early Career, eDNA & Genomics, Marine Conservation, Protected Area Management Tools, Sensors | 4 months 2 weeks ago | |
| @HeinrichS there’s still time for you or anyone else to make a funding submission to the wildlabs 2025 grants ❤️❤️❤️I haven't applied for wildlabs funding, but I would love for... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict, AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Emerging Tech | 4 months 3 weeks ago | |
| thanks kristy! super helpful list. |
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Data management and processing tools, AI for Conservation | 4 months 3 weeks ago | |
| And I see now they can walk vertically up walls like Spider-Man. |
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Camera Traps, AI for Conservation | 4 months 3 weeks ago | |
| Thank you for the comments. My team will be glad to have this added to the inventory. |
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AI for Conservation | 4 months 4 weeks ago | |
| I added plain old motion detection because megadetector v5 was not working well with the smaller rat images and in thermal.This works really well: Also, I can see... |
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AI for Conservation, Camera Traps | 5 months ago | |
| Hello WalterThanks for your input. I have achieved better results with the puc when hooking it up to a powerbank. Have got them set up to "recording only", and GPS to low power... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Citizen Science, Sensors | 5 months 2 weeks ago | |
| great, this security cameras might be interesting for monitoring crop development and maybe other bigger pests like boars or some other herbivorous animals that could eventually... |
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AI for Conservation, Camera Traps | 5 months 2 weeks ago | |
| In a recent call with researchers in Thailand. They have mentioned that they use passive chip readers to log data about chipped animals as they pass by. |
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AI for Conservation, Animal Movement | 5 months 3 weeks ago | |
| Seems like we should include some rotations in our image augmentations as the real world can be seen a bit tilted - as this cropped corner view from our fisheye at the zoo shows. |
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AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Data management and processing tools | 5 months 3 weeks ago | |
| Bird Monitoring Data Exchange is a standard often used for birds data. |
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AI for Conservation, Data management and processing tools, Emerging Tech | 6 months ago | |
| Hey everyone!As you might have heard, BlueSky is on hype now, with millions of users migrating to it from X. Including the scientific world... |
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AI for Conservation | 6 months ago |
A SPOTLIGHT ON CUTTING-EDGE BIOMONITORING TECHNOLOGIES
31 October 2023 9:09am
31 January 2024 7:17pm
Nepal's tiger conservation gets tech boost with AI-powered deer tracking
30 October 2023 1:23pm
Acoustic Monitoring Specialist
26 October 2023 7:32pm
AI + Environment Summit
26 October 2023 11:15am
Entomological Research Specialist for Automated Insect Monitoring
25 October 2023 7:21pm
Lead Data Engineer - Climate Solutions, Open Earth
25 October 2023 11:07am
Automated moth monitoring & you!
24 October 2023 8:52am
Biodiversity modelling in the AI era
23 October 2023 12:03pm
Soundscapes and deep learning enable tracking biodiversity recovery in tropical forests
20 October 2023 3:38pm
Soundscapes and deep learning enable tracking biodiversity recovery in tropical forests | Nature Communications
Tropical forest recovery is fundamental to addressing the intertwined climate and biodiversity loss crises. While regenerating trees sequester carbon relatively quickly, the pace of biodiversity recovery remains contentious. Here, we use bioacoustics and metabarcoding to measure forest recovery post-agriculture in a global biodiversity hotspot in Ecuador. We show that the community composition, and not species richness, of vocalizing vertebrates identified by experts reflects the restoration gradient. Two automated measures – an acoustic index model and a bird community composition derived from an independently developed Convolutional Neural Network - correlated well with restoration (adj-R² = 0.62 and 0.69, respectively). Importantly, both measures reflected composition of non-vocalizing nocturnal insects identified via metabarcoding. We show that such automated monitoring tools, based on new technologies, can effectively monitor the success of forest recovery, using robust and reproducible data. Cost-effective biodiversity monitoring through time is important for evidence-based conservation. Here, the authors show that automated bioacoustics monitoring can be used to track tropical forest recovery from agricultural abandonment, suggesting its use to assess restoration outcomes.
ZSL Research Fellow (x3 roles)
20 October 2023 3:34pm
PhD Opportunity: YELLOWHAMMER - Individual acoustic monitoring to study song culture evolutionwithin and between dialect areas
20 October 2023 12:54pm
PhD Opportunity: Distributed sound source localisation and separation for wireless microphone networks consisting of two-microphone nodes
20 October 2023 12:47pm
PhD Opportunity: 'FLOATERS' position at Bioacoustic AI Doctoral Network
20 October 2023 12:36pm
Catch up with The Variety Hour: October 2023
19 October 2023 11:59am
Anyone else attending ADSA in Texas next week?
17 October 2023 8:46pm
Practical strategies for conservationists in an increasingly digital world
9 October 2023 5:04pm
Leveraging new digital technologies for conservation impact
9 October 2023 4:39pm
AI Challenge aiming to automate the identification process of sea turtles
6 October 2023 11:38am
AI Challenge aiming to automate the identification process of sea turtles
AI Challenge aiming to automate the identification process of sea turtles
Four Amazing Impacts of This A.I.-Powered Bird Migration Tracker | Science| Smithsonian Magazine
5 October 2023 4:26pm
GEO BON Monitoring Biodiversity for Action
5 October 2023 3:10pm
Mozilla Foundation, funding for nature conservation
4 October 2023 6:30pm
🚀 New Grant: 'Satellites for Biodiversity Award' Round 2
2 October 2023 1:50pm
GIS & Data Science Specialist
28 September 2023 1:32pm
Conservation Innovation Manager
27 September 2023 11:08pm
1st Wildlife Scientific Conference 2023
25 September 2023 11:10am
Geospatial Data Scientist, Varaha
25 September 2023 9:58am
Digital Disruption for Conservation Toolkit
22 September 2023 12:18pm
Digital Disruption for Conservation Toolkit
This Toolkit is designed to provide conservation practitioners with a basic introduction to blockchain concepts and their potential use for nature conservation.
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12 May 2023
IUCN and AI2 to provide AI technology at no cost to fast-track implementation of newly signed UN High Seas Treaty
22 September 2023 9:54am
Q&A: UK NERC £3.6m AI (image) for Biodiversity Funding Call - ask your questions here
13 September 2023 4:10pm
21 September 2023 4:27pm
This is super cool! Me and @Hubertszcz and @briannajohns and several others are all working towards some big biodiversity monitoring projects for a large conservation project here in panama. The conservation project is happening already, but hubert starts on the ground work in January and im working on a V3 of our open source automated insect monitoring box to have ready for him by then.
I guess my main question would be if this funding call is appropriate/interested for this type of project? and what types of assistance are possible through this type of funding (researchers? design time? materials? laboratory field construction)
*NEW* White Paper: Harnessing the Power of Sound & AI to track Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) Targets
20 September 2023 12:53pm
15 November 2023 6:10pm