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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.

event

WILDLABS TECH HUB Showcase

WILDLABS Team

17 May 2019 12:00am

Join us at the Tech Hub Showcase event ot hear how our winners are using technology to scale their solutions to the illegal wildlife trade. The event will take place at Digital Catapult, 101 Euston Road, London, on the...

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article

Meet the WILDLABS TECH HUB Winners

WILDLABS Team

13 May 2019 12:00am

In February, we released an open call for the WILDLABS TECH HUB, offering 3 months of support for solutions using technolgy to tackle the illegal wildlife trade. We were overwhelmed by an incredible 37 submissions,...

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WILDLABS Virtual Meetup: Low Cost, Open-Source Solutions

WILDLABS Team

18 March 2019 12:00am

The first event in Season Two of the WILDLABS Virtual Meetup Series was on Low-Cost, Open-Source Solutions. The recording is now available to watch, along with notes and recommended reading based on the discussion. In...

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discussion

Conserving the Sumatran and Javan Rhino

claireoelrichs_siesfund_org

15 January 2019 7:39pm

Save Indonesian Endangered Species (SIES) will be building a machine to identify individual Indonesian rhino.  This will be challenging due to low data numbers.... Sumatran...

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Colin Kingen

23 January 2019 10:12pm

Hello Claire, 

Engineer at Wild Me here. We would love to start a conversation about a Wildbook for rhinos. 

Lets talk about citizen science and computer vision for identification possibilities. I'm curious about your current data set and the identification tools you are using as a starting point. I'm happy to talk here, or you can email our team at services@wildme.org.

Ed Miller

24 February 2019 1:28am

Hi Claire,

At the BearID Project, we are working on a similar problem for brown bears. We are currently using machine learning methods developed for human facial recognition (like Google FaceNet). We got some ok initial results, but now we are running up against small data issues. The method for human faces were trained with millions of images of hundreds of thousandes on individuals. We have a few thousand images of about a hundred individuals. We plan to investigate other methods in the future.

It will be great to keep in touch to see what methods you will be using.

Ed

Ed Miller

24 February 2019 1:38am

Hi Colin,

At the BearID Project, we are working on a similar problem for brown bears. We are currently using machine learning methods developed for human facial recognition (like Google FaceNet). We got some ok initial results, but now we are running up against small data issues. The method for human faces were trained with millions of images of hundreds of thousandes on individuals. We have a few thousand images of about a hundred individuals. We plan to investigate other methods in the future.

The last time I talked to WildMe, the identification algorithms were based on matching unique patterns. We didn't think this would be directly applicable for brown bears as they don't have a lot of clearly identifiable markings. Have you developed other identification algorithms?

Ed

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discussion

Responsible AI for Conservation?

Ollie Wearn

11 February 2019 6:22pm

AI is booming in conservation, with almost daily news articles on how it will solve problem X with algorithm Y. Indeed, there's huge potential here. But, as the old adage goes...

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Ollie Wearn

21 February 2019 8:17am

Hi Jaishanker

Absolutely - the overlap between image-based and sound-based analyses is increasing, and consistent terminology will no doubt help us share info. 

Are you using ML in SODA for automated identification of sounds? If so, how are you determining if a given classifier is performing well? 

Thanks
Ollie

Jaishanker Nair

21 February 2019 11:08am

Hello Ollie,

SODA is a recently launched suite. It is in the development phase. We have with us call libraries with multiple (40+) calls for 10- 12 species of birds. A research scholar is on the job for classifying at the species level.

Our interest is equally on separating the different sonic components (as stated in https://www.wildlabs.net/community/thread/666). It is different from the link shared in my previous reply. This is where I see the confluence of objectives.

As a TEAM, I believe, we can address the individual objectives faster.

regards

jaishanker

 

Laura James

21 February 2019 9:13pm

Hi Ollie, 

Great article, thank you!  I mostly work with responsible AI in other contexts, at Doteveryone.org.uk and the Trust & Technology Initiative at the University of Cambridge, so don't have much to offer here, although I am very interested in the topic.  I appreciate your point that many of the consumer data issues highlighted in the 'popular' responsible AI discourse aren't relevant to conservation (some of us have been gathering 'responsible tech' / 'ethical tech' resources in a shared doc, and there's essentially nothing there for conservation specifically - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SN6hYeKe3eRK6x9D0Sr7GpCA4nirpyo3u68xG1A6NDs/edit ). However there might be some links with humanitarian data practices, which are touched on by the Responsible Data folks at https://responsibledata.io and https://www.fabriders.net/data-literacy-consortium/ or in this recent article https://asecondmouse.wordpress.com/2019/02/20/instability-forecasting-models-seven-ethical-considerations/

Best, 

Laura

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funding

The Ecosulis Rewilding Tech Challenge

Cain Blythe

14 January 2019 12:00am

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...

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event

WILDLABS Virtual Meetup: Big Data in Conservation

WILDLABS Team

27 November 2018 12:00am

The third and final event in Season One of the WILDLABS Virtual Meetup Series was on Big Data in Conservation. The recording is now available to watch, along with notes that highlight the key takeaways from the talks...

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event

Tusk Conservation Lecture 2018: Ted Schmitt

Tusk

15 October 2018 12:00am

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

20 August 2018 12:00am

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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article

Thermal Sensor Project Update: Testing with live animals at the San Diego Zoo

Arribada Initiative

27 July 2018 12:00am

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...

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Lars Holst Hansen

31 March 2023 2:15pm

Hi Anne!Interesting with the vaccum seal issue!When looking at the sensor comparison images, it seems like there is not only a difference in noise (or SNR). The Heimann 80x64 also...
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