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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

Drop-deployed HydroMoth

Sol Milne

2 April 2024 10:20am

Hi all, I'm looking to deploy a HydroMoth, on a drop-deployed frame, from a stationary USV, alongside a suite of marine chemical sensors, to add biodiversity collection to our...

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Sol Milne

15 April 2024 6:53am

Hi Matthew,

Thanks for your advice, this is really helpful!

I'm planning to use it in a seagrass meadow survey for a series of ~20 drops/sites to around 30 m, recording for around 10 minutes each time, in Cornwall, UK.

At this stage I reckon we won't exceed 30 m, but based on your advice, I think this sounds like not the best setup for the surveys we want to try.

We will try the Aquarian H1a, attached to the Zoom H1e unit, through a PVC case. This is what Aquarian recommended to me when I contacted them too.

Thanks for the advice, to be honest the software component is what I was most interested in when it came to the AudioMoth- is there any other open source software you would recommend for this?

Best wishes,

Sol
 

Matthew Duggan

21 April 2024 7:10pm

Hey Sol, 

No problem at all. Depending on your configuration, the Audiomoth software would have to work on a PCB with an ESP32 chip which is the unit on the audiomoth/hydromoth, so you would have to make a PCB centered around this chip. You could mimic the functionality of the audiomoth software on another chip, like on a raspberry pi with python's pyaudio library for example. The problem you would have is that the H1A requires phantom power, so it's not plug and play. I'm not too aware with the H1e, but maybe you can control the microphone through the recorder that is programmable through activations by the RPi (not that this is the most efficient MCU for this application, but it is user friendly). A simpler solution might be to just record continuously and play a sound or take notes of when your 10 min deployment starts. I think it should last you >6 hours with a set of lithium energizer batteries. You may want to think about putting a penetrator on the PVC housing for a push button or switch to start when you deploy. They make a few waterproof options. 

Just somethign else that occured to me, but if you're dropping these systems, you'll want to ensure that the system isn't wobbling in the seagrass as that will probably be all you will hear on the recordings, especially if you plan to deploy shallower. For my studies in Curacao, we aim to be 5lbs negative, but this all depends on your current and surface action. You might also want to think about the time of day you're recording biodiversity in general. I may suggest recording the site for a bit (a couple days or a week) prior to your study to see what you should account for (e.g. tide flow/current/anthropogenic disturbance) and determine diel patterning of vocalizations you are aiming to collect if subsampling at 10 minutes. 

Cheers, 

Matt

Alex Rogers

3 May 2024 12:55pm

Hi Sol,

If the maximum depth is 30m, it would be worth experimenting with HydroMoth in this application especially if the deployment time is short. As Matt says, the air-filed case means it is not possible to accurately calibrate the signal strength due to the directionality of the response. For some applications, this doesn't matter. For others, it may.

Another option for longer/deeper deployments would be an Aquarian H2D hydrophone which will plug directly into AudioMoth Dev or AudioMoth 1.2 (with the 3.5mm jack added). You can then use any appropriately sized battery pack.

If you also connect a magnetic switch, as per the GPS board, you can stop and start recording from outside the housing with the standard firmware.

Alex

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discussion

AI-enabled image query system

Sara Beery

2 May 2024 2:16am

Online citizen science platforms like iNaturalist and Macaulay Library contain a wealth of images but are hard to search using text. We are looking for ideas so we can develop the...

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article

Introducing The Inventory!

Jake Burton

1 May 2024 12:46pm

The Inventory is your one-stop shop for conservation technology tools, organisations, and R&D projects. Start contributing to it now!

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Jake Burton

22 July 2024 10:55am

Hi @hjayanto ! I've given your account the ability to edit without earning the badge just to save time while we figure out why you aren't getting your Sprout Badge, so you should...
Herdhanu Jayanto

23 July 2024 2:05pm

Thank you @JakeBurton . Looks like I wasn't in community base group, instead misunderstood it was the same as thematic group. I have added our organization. Appreciate your help!
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discussion

AI for wolf ID

Maureen Reilly

29 April 2024 7:09pm

We're seeking training data for AI for wolf ID - we at T4C manage 3 Wildbook platforms: Wild North, Whiskerbook and the African Carnivore Wildbook (ACW).  ...

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discussion

AI volunteer work

Phani Krishna

3 February 2024 12:29pm

Hello All, I have recently joined this group and going through the current feeds and discussions i already feel that its the right group i'm search for sometime.I'm a software...

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Alexander Merdian-Tarko

24 April 2024 10:59am

Hi Phani,

An entry point might be to participate in a challenge related to conservation on:

You could also reach out to a conservation organization (e. g. WWF or something smaller and more local) and ask them directly whether there's an opportunity for you to volunteer, perhaps even suggest an idea and maybe they find it useful.

I hope you find an opportunity you're looking for!

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discussion

MegaDetector v5 release

Dan Morris

20 June 2022 9:06pm

Some folks here have previously worked with our MegaDetector model for categorizing camera trap images as person/animal/vehicle/empty; we are excited to announce MegaDetector...

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Yuri Njathi

23 April 2024 9:43pm

Hi @dmorris,

might you have encountered this issue while working with Mega detector v5?

The conflict is caused by:
pytorchwildlife 1.0.2.13 depends on torch==1.10.1
pytorchwildlife 1.0.2.12 depends on torch==1.10.1
pytorchwildlife 1.0.2.11 depends on torch==1.10.1

 

if yes what solution helped?

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discussion

Pytorch-Wildlife: A Collaborative Deep Learning Framework for Conservation (v1.0)

Zhongqi Miao

21 February 2024 10:30pm

Welcome to Pytorch-Wildlife v1.0At the core of our mission is the desire to create a harmonious space where conservation scientists from all over the globe can unite, share, and...

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Stephanie O'Donnell

17 April 2024 11:07am

Hi everyone! @zhongqimiao was kind enough to join Variety Hour last month to talk more about Pytorch-Wildlife, so the recording might be of interest to folks in this thread. Catch up here: 

Yuri Njathi

23 April 2024 9:48pm

Hi @zhongqimiao ,

Might you have faced such an issue while using mega detector

The conflict is caused by:
pytorchwildlife 1.0.2.13 depends on torch==1.10.1
pytorchwildlife 1.0.2.12 depends on torch==1.10.1
pytorchwildlife 1.0.2.11 depends on torch==1.10.1

 

if yes how did you solve it, or might you have any ideas?

torch 1.10.1 doesn't seem to exist

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discussion

WILDLABS AWARDS 2024 - No-code custom AI for camera trap species classification

Emily Dorne

5 April 2024 7:00pm

We're excited to introduce our project that will enable conservationists to easily train models (no code!) that they can use to identify species in their camera trap images.As we...

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Michelle Guins

10 April 2024 3:55am

Happy to explain for sure. By Timelapse I mean images taken every 15 minutes, and sometimes the same seals (anywhere from 1 to 70 individuals) were in the image for many consecutive images. 

Emily Dorne

17 April 2024 5:53pm

Got it. We should definitely be able to handle those images. That said, if you're just looking for counts, then I'd recommend running Megadetector which is an object detection model and outputs a bounding box around each animal.

Johnathan

21 April 2024 5:19pm

Hi, this is pretty interesting to me. I plan to fly a drone over wild areas and look for invasive species incursions. So feral hogs are especially bad, but in the Everglades there is a big invasion of huge snakes. In various areas there are big herds of wild horses that will eat themselves out of habitat also, just to name a few examples. Actually the data would probably be useful in looking for invasive weeds, that is not my focus but the government of Canada is thinking about it.

Does your research focus on photos, or can you analyze LIDAR? I don't really know what emitters are available to fly over an  area, or which beam type would be best for each animal type. I know that some drones carry a LIDAR besides a camera for example. Maybe a thermal camera would be best to fly at night.

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discussion

WILDLABS AWARDS 2024 – MothBox

Hubert Szczygiel

15 April 2024 5:06am

 We are incredibly thankful to WILDLABS and Arm for selecting the MothBox for the 2024 WILDLABS Awards.  The MothBox is an automated light trap that attracts and...

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Andrew Quitmeyer

19 April 2024 12:00pm

Yeah we got it about as bare bones as possible for this level of photo resolution and duration in the field. The main costs right now are:

 

Pi- $80

Pijuice -$75

Battery - $85

64mp Camera - $60

which lands us at $300 already. But we might be able to eliminate that pijuice and have fewer moving parts, and cut 1/4 of our costs! Compared to something like just a single logitech brio camera that sells for $200 and only gets us like 16mp, we are able to make this thing as cheap as we could figure out! :)

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article

Completely irrational animals...

Rob Appleby

3 April 2024 7:13pm

Article from Ars Technica about how difficult it is to detect and avoid kangaroos...

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Robin Sandfort

3 April 2024 9:09pm

Thanks for the info Rob! Lot´s of research going on in this field. After decades of trying to warn the animals (first red reflectors which are not working with ungulates and now...
Robin Sandfort

3 April 2024 9:20pm

The idea is not new. It has been tested twenty years ago:short english summary: https://...
Rob Appleby

4 April 2024 5:05am

Hi Robin,Thanks for all that information! Yes the 'at-grade' crossing idea (the second message article summary you linked to) is a really good one I think. Going to try and...
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discussion

AI for Conservation!

Alessandro Calo

4 March 2024 8:51pm

Hi everybody!I just graduated in artificial intelligence (master's) after a bachelor's in computer engineering. I'm absolutely fascinated by nature and wildlife and I'm trying to...

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Arky

22 March 2024 12:29pm

Welcome, Have you considered participating in any of the AI for Good challenges. I find it is good way to build a nice portfolio of work. Also contributing to existing open source ML projects such as megadetector or to upstream libraries such as PyTorch is good way to getting hired. 

 

 

 

Arky

25 March 2024 5:22am

We could always use more contributors in open source projects. In most open source companies Red Hat, Anaconda, Red Hat and Mozilla, people often ended up getting hired largely due to their contributions on open source projects. These contributions were both technical such as writing computer code and non-technical such as writing documentation and translating tools in their local language. 

 

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article

The Variety Hour: 2024 Lineup

Alex Rood

22 March 2024 4:30pm

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...

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event

Catch up with The Variety Hour: March 2024

Stephanie O'Donnell

21 March 2024 7:39pm

Variety Hour is back! This month we're talking about making AI more accessible with Pytorch, new developments from WildMe and TagRanger, and working with geospatial data with Fauna & Flora. See you there!

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Anton Alvarez

30 March 2024 3:08pm

Unfortunately, I can't be there. When will you upload the recording?    
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