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!
- @Kyle_Birchard
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Building tools for research and management of insect populations
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University of California & California Academy of Sciences
Biodiversity |Technology | Socio-Ecological Systems | Wildlife Ecology | Remote Sensing | Conservation | K12STEM-education | Music | diegoellissoto.org
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- @dka32
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I am a highly motivated individual with a background in Natural Resources Management. I am a conservationist who desire to make an impact in the field of conservation using technology.
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Retired Engineer / UAV interests / Photographer
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Passionate wildlife and biodiversity conservationist
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- @williams
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I am a conservationist specializing in endangered species, particularly vultures. As the Endangered Species Conservation Coordinator/Co-Founder at Biota Conservation Hub Foundation (BiotaCHF), I have conducted extensive research/conservation of vultures and other water birds.
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- @ARobillard
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A conservation data scientist and field ecologist with broad interest in the application of machine learning and population genetics to the conservation of threatened species. Alex has conducted field studies throughout central and south America, the Caribbean, and North America.
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Seeking a highly motivated person with an excellent academic record, a good understanding of artificial intelligence and computer vision/deep learning, and an interest in contributing to cutting-edge AI research on kākā...
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A PhD opportunity for anyone interested in coastal drone surveys, seaweeds, climate change and the chance to do a whole bunch of different computer modelling including AI-driven species distribution modelling to assess...
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The Department of Wildlife, Fish, and Environmental Studies (WFE), SLU, Umeå, is looking for a postdoc with strong interests in wildlife conservation technology. She/he will work within Big Picture, a European project...
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Develop state-of-the-art interactive ML-based tools for biodiverstiy conservation and related applications
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Join the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance as a Postdoctoral Fellow! Lead groundbreaking bioacoustic and ML research to conserve burrowing owls in SoCal.
26 November 2024
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The paper looks at technology advances for vegetation cover changes monitoring. For example, computer vision methods to infer 3D parameters via contextual learning from optical images.
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AmazonTEC: 4D Technology for Biodiversity Monitoring in the Amazon (English)
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Interesting webinar on the use of advanced technologies(e.g. Artificial Intelligence, cloud computing, drones, camera traps and satellites) for biodiversity monitoring in the Amazon. Also available in Spanish.
25 November 2024
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Computer Vision Developer
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| Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hi, just wanted to let whoever is interested that v.1.3 of DeepFaune is out! Deepfaune is a software that runs on any standard... |
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Camera Traps, AI for Conservation, Open Source Solutions | 1 month 2 weeks ago | |
| New stable release : v1.5.1We are pleased to announce the latest release with several important enhancement, fixes and documentation improvements to ensure compatibility with the... |
+15
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Open Source Solutions, Software Development | 1 month 3 weeks ago | |
| Hi all, I'm Vainqueur BULAMBO. I'm looking for a fully funded PhD opportunity in ecological data science or conservation... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Autonomous Camera Traps for Insects | 1 month 4 weeks ago | |
| A nice work from @dmorris! See his LK post. "Lots of information in the conservation literature is represented in maps (e.g., the... |
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AI for Conservation, Geospatial | 2 months ago | |
| Hi all, I'm the founder of a company in Texas that provides thermal drone surveying for private game ranches. Right now, we're doing everything completely manually in terms of... |
+20
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AI for Conservation | 2 months ago | |
| Play FathomVerse: App Store | Google Play Join the Community: Discord | Instagram | TikTok | LinkedInStay up-to-date: ... |
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Marine Conservation, AI for Conservation, Citizen Science | 2 months 1 week ago | |
| Really looking forward to following this project. I'm very curious how you'll be able to tease out different species, particularly among species that feature a variety of worker... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation | 2 months 1 week ago | |
| I am interested in the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) for conservation, specifically in how they can be improved with Retrieval-... |
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AI for Conservation | 2 months 1 week ago | |
| Yep see you on friday |
+3
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Geospatial, Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Citizen Science, Community Base, Data management and processing tools, Emerging Tech, Open Source Solutions, Protected Area Management Tools | 2 months 1 week ago | |
| Yep we are working on it 1/ segment 2/remote unwanted ecosytem3/get local potential habitat4/generate5/add to picture |
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Geospatial, AI for Conservation, Data management and processing tools, Open Source Solutions, Software Development | 2 months 1 week ago | |
| All sound, would be nice if there were only 5, though! |
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AI for Conservation, Citizen Science, Data management and processing tools, Emerging Tech, Ethics of Conservation Tech, Funding and Finance, Geospatial, Open Source Solutions, Software Development | 2 months 1 week ago | |
| I'm sure others here can comment better than I on models for classifying animal sounds, but from an ML pint of view, a key concern is getting enough data. 10 recordings does not... |
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AI for Conservation, Animal Movement, Human-Wildlife Conflict | 2 months 2 weeks ago |
Call for Nominations: Tusk Conservation Awards
3 March 2020 12:00am
Competition: Plastic Data Challenge
Ellie Warren
3 March 2020 12:00am
Hawai'i Conservation Conference
Hawaiʻi Conservation Alliance
28 February 2020 12:00am
Competition: The Artisanal Mining Grand Challenge
26 February 2020 12:00am
Listening to Nature: The Emerging Field of Bioacoustics
24 February 2020 12:00am
Team for Building of ML app for horse identification and conservation
20 February 2020 11:09pm
HWC Tech Challenge Update: Thermal Elephant Alert System
17 February 2020 12:00am
ICEI2020: 11th International Conference on Ecological Informatics
ICEI 2020
14 February 2020 12:00am
Seafood fund seeks ideas for innovation projects up to £250k
11 February 2020 12:00am
WILDLABS Virtual Meetup Recording: Acoustic Monitoring
WILDLABS Team
5 February 2020 12:00am
AI for camera trap public data
17 December 2019 9:20pm
A New Cloud Platform Unveils the Most Diverse Camera Trap Database in the World
17 December 2019 12:00am
[ARCHIVED] Workshop on Deep Learning Methods and Appliocations for Animal Re-Identification
25 November 2019 6:24pm
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25 November 2019 12:00am
WILDLABS Virtual Meetup Recording: Drones
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9 November 2019 12:00am
Camera Trapping: Incredibly Useful Resources List
5 November 2019 12:00am
Who wants to learn Python? Courses to get you started coding
2 May 2016 3:13pm
1 March 2019 9:20am
Hello everyone what are you wating for..
All US, UK, India users can enroll courses from Intellipaat (the largest IT trainng company)
check some of thier superb training list:
29 October 2019 4:52pm
Chuck's Python for Everyone course is available these days at www.py4e.com, and he's also created a course called Web Apps for Everyone www.wa4e.com. Both excellent resources, and he's a strong proponent for (and creator of) open source educational tools in general.
Lucy
Plant-Powered Camera Trap Breakthrough
15 October 2019 12:00am
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27 July 2019 12:00am
[ARCHIVED] Position: UI/UX Machine Learning Engineer
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[ARCHIVED] Position: Senior Computer Vision Research Engineer
8 July 2019 10:42pm
Hello buzzing World!
7 July 2019 6:55pm
ML at the Edge
28 June 2019 8:16am
Meetup: Machine Learning/AI on Earth Observation Data (23 July, London)
21 June 2019 12:00am
New open data site for fisheries
10 June 2019 7:17pm
Workshop & Challenges on Computer Vision for Wildlife Conservation (CVWC) at ICCV 2019
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31 August 2017 9:06am
A couple of years ago I completed the Coursera course Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python) with Charles Severance. I found it really well paced and well taught. He's a very personable tutor, and has also written a free book Python for Everybody, available as a PDF.
I found the Coursera course on R Programming with Roger Peng to be more difficult to follow, but I'm not sure whether that was down to the teaching style or the language itself. For R, I'd definitely recommend the best place to get started is swirl - Learn R, in R!
Happy coding