AI for Conservation

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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.

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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!

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@Nix
| she/her

Hello! I'm Amélie, founder of Nix Air Solutions, a company offering wildlife monitoring solutions including biologging IoT trackers and software tools for real time tracking, data cleaning and processing through AI.

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@victor_wildlife

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@TravisBayer

Movement Ecologist studying the where, why, and how animals move throughout our world. Current work is investigating the movement and energetics of large neotropical bats in a changing environment with ephemeral resources.

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@matt_hron
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Wildlife Protection Solutions (WPS)

Product Manager at Wildlife Protection Solutions

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@maddy
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Iam a Doctorate in molecular bology by profession & associated with a tech startup, focued on IoT/sensor based automation solutions. But I spend half of my time to document and conserve local & wildlife arond us and trying to explore our technology in conservation.Love to join

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@tomwhite101
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Agroecology Geek

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@benitezl
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@Abby_Hehmeyer

World Wide Fund for Nature/ World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

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@heiabb02
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Early Career Wild Felid conservationist with BS in Biology & Zoology

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@Kathinja
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A Geography Graduate with a keen interest in Geographic Information systems(GIS), a climate enthusiast, sustainable development, conservation effort and green technologies

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@sarabeery

Asst. Prof @ MIT with research at the intersection of computer vision, biodiversity monitoring, conservation, and sustainability.

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@dwponirakis

Cornell University

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Article

Earth Blox dataset review: Meta Global Canopy Height (1m)

Cassie Anderson

Review by Professor Iain H Woodhouse

29 April 2024

Careers

Program Manager: Integrating movement and camera trap data with international conservation policy

Lacey Hughey

The Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute is seeking a Program Manager to help coordinate multiple organizations in an effort to integrate movement data & camera trap data with global...

22 April 2024

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Postdoc: Biologging & Camera Trap Data Integration

Lacey Hughey

The Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute is seeking a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to help us integrate movement data & camera trap data with global conservation policy.

22 April 2024

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Join the Seeed Vision Challenge and Explore Conservation Tech!

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Join the Seeed Vision Challenge, an opportunity for conservation innovators to harness the power of AI vision sensors for environmental monitoring and protection.

10 April 2024

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Job Opportunity - Wildlife Protection Solutions

Wildlife Protection Solutions

Full-Stack Software Developer (Python/React) - Specializing in AI/ML for Wildlife Conservation

5 April 2024

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Completely irrational animals...

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Rescuers hope AI will help reunite orphaned whale with its family in B.C.

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Finwave, while currently in beta-testing, is being used to help reunite an orphaned whale with its family.

3 April 2024

Careers

Postdoc in AI for acoustic biodiversity monitoring

Dan Stowell

18 month postdoc research position, Netherlands, EU-funded

28 March 2024

Link

ibm-nasa-geospatial (IBM NASA Geospatial)

Stephanie O'Donnell

NASA and IBM have teamed up to create an AI Foundation Model for Earth Observations, using large-scale satellite and remote sensing data, including the Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 (HLS) data.

28 March 2024

Article

The Variety Hour: 2024 Lineup

Alex Rood

You’re invited to the WILDLABS Variety Hour, a monthly event that connects you to conservation tech's most exciting projects, research, and ideas. We can't wait to bring you a whole new season of speakers and...

22 March 2024

Careers

Data Manager and Technology Coordinator, ABC Global Climate Center

Stephanie O'Donnell

Join our multi-national team at the AI for Biodiversity Change Global Climate Center! We're hiring a Research Data Manager & Tech Coordinator at Ohio State. Support cutting-edge research on climate change &...

15 March 2024

Link

The Freshwater Sounds Archive

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Introducing The Freshwater Sounds Archive, a global database of sounds produced by freshwater species. Submit your species-specific or unidentified sounds to the archive now and receive recognition for your...

15 March 2024

Description	Activity	Groups	Updated
Development of Non-Invasive Techniques for Identifying Eurasian Otter Populations in Lebanon	Samara P. El-Haddad Wildlife Conservation Junior Specialist at Lebanon Reforestation Initiative (LRI)...	AI for Conservation, Community Base	5 years ago
Thinking Outside the Box: Using FIT for Box Turtle Shell ID	How neat, thanks for sharing! We'd love to hear more about your drone project once it's underway, please keep us updated on that one!	AI for Conservation, Emerging Tech	5 years 1 month ago
Tech Tutors: How do I get started using ML for my camera traps? Building Accurate Project-Specific Models	Great talk! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Some high schoolers have done small AI projects(s) and have interest in the wildlife. What resources would you all suggest to further...	AI for Conservation, Camera Traps	5 years 1 month ago
Advancing Monitoring of Endangered Forest Carnivores using Footprint Identification Technology (FIT)	Author: Jody Tucker, U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Region Carnivore Monitoring ProgramFigures below text in order (Fig 1...	AI for Conservation, Emerging Tech	5 years 1 month ago
Endangered Species Day Friday 15th May!	What better way to celebrate Endangered Species Day 2020 than try a new technology to protect them? If you're planning to be out and...	AI for Conservation, Emerging Tech	5 years 3 months ago
Webinar 11PST 3/20 - Deep Learning for Airborne Tree Detection	DeepForest docs are here. https://deepforest.readthedocs.io/ Welcome to have a look. My experience is that individual trees cannot be distinguished in satellite...	AI for Conservation	5 years 4 months ago
Open, challenging dataset for audio classification	Steph, thank you so much for this, this is wonderful :) Really, really apreciate you sharing this with me :) Diving into all of the wonderful resources from you, thank you so very...	AI for Conservation	5 years 4 months ago
Help collate list of Ecology/Conservation Data Sets for grad students	A call put out over on Twitter by Jesse Alston might be of interest here - both for conservationists and grad students. Looks like...	AI for Conservation	5 years 4 months ago
Automated species detection from camera traps	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...	AI for Conservation	5 years 4 months ago
Team for Building of ML app for horse identification and conservation	Hi there this post on Conservation X labs recently came up on designing softwarre for individual horse recognition: https://...	AI for Conservation	5 years 5 months ago
AI for camera trap public data	Wildlife Insights launched their online platform hosting over 4 million camera trap images. They use AI to automatically classify the...	AI for Conservation	5 years 8 months ago
[ARCHIVED] Workshop on Deep Learning Methods and Appliocations for Animal Re-Identification	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...	AI for Conservation	5 years 8 months ago

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