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AI for Conservation / Feed

Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used in the field to analyse information collected by wildlife conservationists, from camera trap and satellite images to audio recordings. AI can learn how to identify which photos out of thousands contain rare species; or pinpoint an animal call out of hours of field recordings - hugely reducing the manual labour required to collect vital conservation data.

discussion

DeepFaune: a software for AI-based identification of mammals in camera-trap pictures and videos

Simon Chamaillé-Jammes

14 July 2023 3:14pm

Hello everyone, just wanted to advertise here the DeepFaune initiative that I lead with Vincent Miele. We're building AI-based species recognition models for camera-trap...

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German Forero

24 October 2023 8:46pm

Hello to all, new to this group. This is very exciting technology. can it work for ID of individual animals? we are interested in Ai for identifying individual jaguars (spots) and andean Bears (face characteristics). Any recommendation? contact? thanks!

German

Kim Hendrikse

25 October 2023 8:57am

That's a very interesting question and use case (I'm not from deepfaune). I'm playing with this at the moment and intend to integrate it into my other security software that can capture and send video alerts. I should have this working within a few weeks I think.

The structure of that software is that it is two stage, the first stage identifies that there is an animal and it's bounding box and then there's a classification stage. I intend to merge the two stages so that it behaves like a yolo model so that the output is bounding boxes as well as what type of animal it is.

However, my security software can cascade models. So if you were able to train a single stage classifier that identifies your particular bears, then you could cascade all of these models in my software to generate an alert with a video saying which bear it was.

Ed Miller

4 November 2023 4:51am

Hi @GermanFore ,

I work with the BearID Project on individual identification of brown bears from faces. More recently we worked on face detection across all bear species and ran some tests with identifying Andean bears. You can find details in the paper I linked below. We plan to do more work with Andean bears in 2024.

I would love to connect with you. I'll send you a message with my email address.

Regards,

Ed

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event

A SPOTLIGHT ON CUTTING-EDGE BIOMONITORING TECHNOLOGIES

Thomas Luypaert

31 October 2023 9:09am

Join us in our session to feature the latest developments and applications in groundbreaking biomonitoring tech in the tropics

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ANDREA VARELA

15 November 2023 6:10pm

Hello!The Galápagos Islands can be considered Tropics? We do drone monitoring of the marine iguanas with the project Iguanas from Above :)Thanks.Andrea Varela
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careers

Acoustic Monitoring Specialist

Mandy Holmgren

26 October 2023 7:32pm

The Institute for Bird Populations (IBP) seeks a California-based acoustic monitoring specialist to collect, manage, and process avian acoustic data from multiple research and conservation projects across California...

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Link

Soundscapes and deep learning enable tracking biodiversity recovery in tropical forests

Stephanie O'Donnell

20 October 2023 3:38pm

New paper in Nature Communications from Jörg Müller et al. using BAR-LT recorders and CNNs to track biodiversity recovery. Study shows that #soundscapes 🎙🎶 and deep learning are powerful tools for tracking biodiversity recovery in tropical forests

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Read "Soundscapes and deep learning enable tracking biodiversity recovery in tropical forests | Nature Communications" on Nature

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.

Nature
Link

AI Challenge aiming to automate the identification process of sea turtles

Henry Rees

6 October 2023 11:38am

The current method of tagging turtles for monitoring is intrusive, time-consuming, and expensive. Find out how automated recognition software using photo and video data can enhance monitoring efficiency and assist organizations dedicated to protecting these important species...

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careers

Conservation Innovation Manager

David Will

27 September 2023 11:08pm

Island Conservation's Innovation Team is dedicated to developing innovative, data-driven tools to increase the scale, scope, and pace of island restorations around the world. As the Conservation Innovation Manager, you...

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Link

Digital Disruption for Conservation Toolkit

Gal Zanir

22 September 2023 12:18pm

Made available by the Digital Disruption and the Future of Conservation project team at Unearthodox, the toolkit provides conservation practitioners with a comprehensive introduction to Web 3.0 and AI concepts and their potential use for nature conservation.

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discussion

Q&A: UK NERC £3.6m AI (image) for Biodiversity Funding Call - ask your questions here

Stephanie O'Donnell

13 September 2023 4:10pm

In our last Variety Hour, Simon Gardner, Head of Digital Environment at NERC, popped in to share more about their open £3.6m funding call supporting innovation in tools for...

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Andrew Quitmeyer

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)

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