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!
- @Samiul
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Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)
Working for wildlife conservation in Bangladesh since 2010.
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- @kklibra
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A biodiversity specialist with a penchant for using data, tools and applications for conservation and management of wildlife. That's IT.
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- @kateumbers
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alpine ecology, insect conservation, evolutionary ecology, behavioural ecology.
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Passionate about wildlife and impact investment with an academic, research and practitioner background in environmental science, environmental law and green criminology pursued in Central America, China, Tanzania and the United Kingdom I am driven to decolonise the research on c
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Passionate with conservation
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Newcastle University
Senior Lecturer in Biological Modelling. Interests in AI, spatial data, invertebrate ecology, species mapping
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- @JunglelaniTales
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We currently producing an animation series meant to teach and inspire climate action to kids. Looking forward to networking opportunities.
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- @Venance
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As a wildlife conservationist, I am deeply committed to the Ecology and Community Development. I help communities balance conservation with livelihoods, promoting beekeeping with the motto “Shusha Shoka, Pandisha Mzinga (Drop the Axe, Raise the Hive).
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National Geographic Society
Experience utilizing technology to inspire, educate, and create solutions to some of our biggest challenges. Currently, head of the National Geographic Society Exploration Technology Lab, overseeing the development and deployment of research and storytelling technologies.
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- @AthenaRycyk
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- @TheSarahShu
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Director of User Experience in B2B SaaS and PaaS. Background in helping users configure, visualize, and interpret big data to solve complex networking challenges. Passionate about conservation.
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- @magerk
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wildlife ecologist, Associate Professor of Environmental Science, Policy, & Sustainability and Biology
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New paper - "acoupi integrates audio recording, AI-based data processing, data management, and real-time wireless messaging into a unified and configurable framework. We demonstrate the flexibility of acoupi by...
7 February 2025
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SPOTS Internship Programme
Georg Strunck
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6 February 2025
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Live and work in sunny San Diego for the summer, contributing to engineering projects as they relate to conservation technology.
6 February 2025
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SDZWA Conservation Tech Summer Fellowship
Kyra Swanson
The Conservation Technology Laboratory within the Population Sustainability department is seeking two fellows for summer 2025
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Are you a data scientist interested in developing AI to help wildlife conservation?
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Megan Cromp
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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.
15 January 2025
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I am thrilled to share that we are hiring for an AI Innovation Manager to help us build out CI's Nature Tech & Innovation Portfolio. You don't need to be a software engineer or AI expert to apply! We are seeking an...
7 January 2025
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We are seeking a highly motivated person with an excellent academic record, a good understanding of ecology and/or conservation and an interest in contributing to cutting-edge research on kākā conservation
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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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New PhD - Drones, seaweeds & climate change
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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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| Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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| This can be done, happy to help :) But I think I need to understand the situation a little bit more. Do you already have the data for training / inference? Do you have any... |
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AI for Conservation | 5 years 2 months ago | |
| Hi there this post on Conservation X labs recently came up on designing softwarre for individual horse recognition: https://... |
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AI for Conservation | 5 years 3 months ago | |
| Wildlife Insights launched their online platform hosting over 4 million camera trap images. They use AI to automatically classify the... |
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AI for Conservation | 5 years 5 months ago | |
| Hey everyone! My colleagues and I are hosting a workshop on Animal Re-ID, and the submission deadline is a little less than a month... |
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AI for Conservation | 5 years 6 months ago | |
| 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... |
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AI for Conservation | 5 years 6 months ago | |
| Hi all! This is a great article summarizing new applications for AI for conservation, and highlights @vsahai 's work with... |
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AI for Conservation | 5 years 9 months ago | |
| Wild Me (wildme.org) is looking to retain a UI/UX Machine Learning Engineer to help translate advanced ML into beautiful interfaces... |
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AI for Conservation | 5 years 10 months ago | |
| Wild Me (wildme.org) is looking to hire a second, Masters or PhD-level Senior Computer Vision Engineer to focus on individual ID of... |
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AI for Conservation | 5 years 10 months ago | |
| Hi, I would just like to introduce our Project BEESWAX7 and announce that today we acheived two milestones for success; we recorded bee... |
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AI for Conservation | 5 years 10 months ago | |
| There's a discussion over in camera traps about the design of a device to run autonomously (in an inaccessible location) with reliable... |
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AI for Conservation | 5 years 11 months ago | |
| I got to help TNC launch fishnet.ai over the weekend, a home for training data for fisheries monitoring & computer vision AI. We have a... |
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AI for Conservation | 5 years 11 months ago | |
| Please consider submitting to this workshop and/or challenge which may be relevant to your work: Call for Papers and Call... |
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AI for Conservation | 5 years 11 months ago |
