With experts across the WILDLABS community working with every type of technology and in every imaginable environment, our platform is a great place to find advice and resources on choosing what tools are right for your conservation project. Whether you're in the market to try a new camera trap model, want to experiment with drones for the first time, or need help weighing the pros and cons of data management tools, there's someone in the WILDLABS community who can help you make a smart and informed choice!
The Community Base is our general gathering group. It's the place where we cover more general, big picture topics in conservation technology - ones that don't fit neatly into our other groups. If you don't know where to post something, just post it in this group. Our moderators will move it if needed!
At our Community Base, you'll find updates from the WILDLABS team on upcoming events and opportunities, and have the chance to shape our programs and platform with your opinions. And most importantly, the Community Base is also home to our Welcome to WILDLABS thread, the best place to introduce yourself to us and the community. Stop by and tell us what you're working on!
Whether you're new to WILDLABS and want to know where to begin, or you're a longtime member looking for a handy bank of resources, our Getting Started on WILDLABS thread will be your one-stop guide to getting the most out of our platform.
Want to find out more about WILDLABS? Check out our recent community call:
Header image: Ana Verahrami/Elephant Listening Project
Group curators
- @TaliaSpeaker
- | She/her
WILDLABS & World Wide Fund for Nature/ World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
I'm the Executive Manager of WILDLABS at WWF



- 23 Resources
- 64 Discussions
- 31 Groups
- @alexrood
- | she/her
WILDLABS & World Wide Fund for Nature/ World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
I'm the WILDLABS Communications and Community Management Associate Specialist at WWF-US





- 149 Resources
- 95 Discussions
- 6 Groups
No showcases have been added to this group yet.
- @Britneecheney
- | her/she
My name is Britnee Cheney. I am a keeper and trainer for three North American River Otters at an aquarium in Utah. I have recently started a conservation program for this species in the wild and am looking for resources and mentors to help me with my camera trapping.


- 0 Resources
- 13 Discussions
- 7 Groups
- @Robincrocs
- | He/Him//El//Ele
Wildlife biologist, works with Caimans and Crocodiles
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 15 Groups
PhD student at the University of Wuerzburg, working on the influence of climate change on animal migration, especially the Northern Bald Ibis.
- 1 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 6 Groups
- @jstalker
- | she/her
Herpetologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

- 0 Resources
- 5 Discussions
- 2 Groups
- @StephODonnell
- | She / Her



- 196 Resources
- 676 Discussions
- 31 Groups
- @Rob_Appleby
- | He/him
Wild Spy
Whilst I love everything about WILDLABS and the conservation tech community I am mostly here for the badges!!





- 1 Resources
- 315 Discussions
- 11 Groups
- @CathyNj
- | She
Catherine Njore is a seasoned Cartographer with over 18yrs experience and specializing in children cartography. She recently designed a Cartography: Fun with Maps Program(CFMP); a program that assists children to learn how to draw, read and use maps effectively.

- 7 Resources
- 56 Discussions
- 6 Groups
Robotic engineer, working on environmental and biodiversity monitoring.

- 0 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 3 Groups
I work in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. The focus of my NGO is to facilitate the scientific study of the natural and cultural resources of the cenotes and underground rivers of our region.
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 3 Groups
Octophin Digital
Director at Octophin, building software for wildlife conservation. Including WILDLABS.



- 2 Resources
- 24 Discussions
- 2 Groups
- @DeepakSathyanarayan
- | he/his
Deepak is an experienced professional who has served in multiple leadership roles in technology, science, product development, and engineering programs. He has proven expertise in shaping and executing technology strategies across defense, space, health, and environment sectors.


- 0 Resources
- 5 Discussions
- 7 Groups
- @sam.cope.king
- | she/her
ProtectedSeas
Marine Monitor (M2) Senior Scientist



- 0 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 5 Groups
After a long application review and finalisation process, we are thrilled to finally announce the winners of the WILDLABS Awards 2024!
26 March 2024
Article
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
As we launch the search for our third Women in Conservation Technology cohort, let’s take a moment to reflect on the highlights of our 2023 journey and shine a spotlight on the incredible women of our inaugural...
22 March 2024
SMART Global Congress, the first global gathering of conservation professionals using SMART, was held in Windhoek, Namibia from March 10-13. Here is a snapshot of what we learned!
19 March 2024
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
The Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (SNZCBI) is seeking two postdoctoral fellows to engage more directly with identifying conservation metrics for vertebrate communities and populations.
14 March 2024
The Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior at its sites in Constance and Radolfzell offers an international, interdisciplinary, and collaborative environment that opens up unique research opportunities. The goal of our...
13 March 2024
Hussey Labs seeks a senior post-doctoral researcher/senior research associate for movement ecology of Greenland halibut in the context of fisheries management across Baffin Bay-Davis Strait, Eastern Canadian Arctic.
13 March 2024
Texas A&M is seeking applicants for a fully funded Ph.D. assistantship to begin a long-term study on collared peccary (also known as javelina) ecology in southern Texas.
13 March 2024
The Lonely Hearts Club Challenge is a $1 million commitment and open funding call for early-stage organizations and solutions focused on fostering meaningful social connection, teen belonging, and wellbeing in a tech-...
13 March 2024
Article
Learn more about our new badges feature, including what badges are available and how to obtain them!
12 March 2024
We’re unveiling badges, a new feature that allows you to showcase how you’re involved in WILDLABS. Keep track of engagement, show off your collection, and maybe even engage in some friendly competition.
12 March 2024
October 2025
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Bienvenido Maxi! |
+9
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Community Base, Latin America Community | 3 months 4 weeks ago | |
Wow, thanks for sharing @Nycticebus_scientia. Would love to read further papers on these topics if folks have them! |
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Community Base, Ethics of Conservation Tech | 4 months ago | |
Hello everyone,Thank you all for your contribution!You can read some updates about this project in this post.Julia |
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Acoustics, Community Base, Data management and processing tools, Open Source Solutions | 4 months ago | |
Better later than never, opening a thread to share with you some statistics about the applications received for The Boring Fund 2024 as we... |
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Community Base | 4 months 2 weeks 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 | 4 months 2 weeks ago | |
Good afternoon Stephanie!It is sad to see you go, but very exciting to hear that you will be on adventures new very soon! I wish you all the best in your future endeavours and... |
+6
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Community Base | 4 months 2 weeks ago | |
Good morning JocelynThank you very much for your comment, this is proving to be very useful advice and thank you so much for setting me on the right path!! This is very exciting!!... |
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Animal Movement, Citizen Science, Human-Wildlife Coexistence, Marine Conservation, Drones, Community Base, Geospatial | 4 months 2 weeks ago | |
Hi, Thank you for your message I think there's some kind of application for this app not by itself by complementing technologies like NABIT, mentioned in an earlier comment.... |
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Emerging Tech, Community Base | 4 months 3 weeks ago | |
I love the emails that lead me here. |
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Community Base | 4 months 3 weeks ago | |
It's great to see so much interest in presenting at this webinar. We have also received interest through direct messages and meetings that we've happened to have had. Thank you... |
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Open Source Solutions, Community Base, Funding and Finance | 5 months 1 week ago | |
Linkedin mainly. iNaturalist and eBird ofc but these are more communities than real social networks. But, and this is a real advice, a good RSS feed reader with all your... |
+5
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AI for Conservation, Community Base | 5 months 1 week ago | |
Hi Savi, Apologies for the delayed response. I have finished my Marters in AI and ML. Happy to share. Soumya |
+13
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Community Base, Early Career | 5 months 2 weeks ago |
Let's save our environment
31 January 2024 12:52pm
Power managment/Recharging System and Communication System
2 January 2024 4:06pm
26 January 2024 9:03am
Power usage for microcontrollers with solar is much more manageable. For Raspberry Pi's and higher it gets expensive and big.
I'm quite impressed by the specs from the Goal Zero Yeti devices. This can have high capacity and be charged with Solar. Not small though. And the price is not in proportion to the Pi's.
So this 200x model for example, would be close to 16 days running the audio recorder. Let's say 10. without solar. Add solar? Depends on the size of the panels I guess. Power usage for mobile networking? Depends on how much you transmit.
Probably some well documented experiments would be really nice for people here. Sounds like something nice for the next set of grants :)
26 January 2024 2:11pm
Real nice video. I'll have another look in the weekend in detail.
Need advice - image management and tagging
12 January 2024 7:55pm
15 January 2024 8:47pm
Interesting, Iʻll give it a shot. Looks like this could save me some time.
Thanks for the explanation @wade!
24 January 2024 5:16pm
I have no familiarity with Lightroom, but the problem you describe seems like a pretty typical data storage and look up issue. This is the kind of problem that many software engineers deal with on a daily bases. In almost every circumstance this class of problem is solved using a database.
In fact, a potentially useful analysis is that the Lightroom database is not providing the feature set you need.
It seems likely that you are not looking for a software development project, and setting up you own DB would certainly require some effort, but if this is a serious issue for your work, you hope to scale your work up, or bring many other participants into your project, it might make sense to have an information system that better fits your needs.
There are many different databases out there optimized for different sorts of things. For this I might suggest taking a look at MongoDB with GridFS for a couple of reasons.
- It looks like you meta data is in JSON format. Many DBs are JSON compatible, but Mongo is JSON native. It is especially good at storing and retrieving JSON data. Its JSON search capabilities are excellent and easy to use. It looks like you could export your data directly from Lightroom into Mongo, so it might be pretty easy actually.
- Mongo with the GridFS package is an excellent repository for arbitrarily large image files.
- It is straightforward to make a Mongo database accessible via a website.
- They are open source (in a manner of speaking) and you can run it for free.
Disclaimer: I used to work for MongoDB. I don't anymore and I have no vested interest at all, but they make a great product that would really crush this whole class of problem.
25 January 2024 8:32am
Hi!
I would take a look at
Although developed for camera trap imagery, it is by no means restricted to such.
Cheers,
Lars
How are Outdoor Fire Detection Systems Adapted for Small Forest Areas, Considering the Predominance of Indoor Fire Detectors?
8 January 2024 4:27pm
22 January 2024 6:35pm
Fire detection is a sort of broad idea. Usually people detect the products of fire, and most often this is smoke.
Many home fire detectors in the US use a radioactive source and measure the absorption of the radiation by the air. More smoke means more absorption.
For outdoor fire detection, PM2.5 can be a very good smoke proxy, and outdoor PM2.5 sensing is pretty accessible.
This one is very popular in my area.
Classic - Air Quality Monitor | AQI PM2.5 Indoor/Outdoor Sensor – PurpleAir
The PurpleAir Classic air quality monitor is the original and popular PurpleAir sensor. It measures real-time PM2.5 concentrations for residential, commercial, or industrial use and can be installed indoors or outdoors. Built-in WiFi enables the air quality measurement device to transmit data to the real-time PurpleAir AQI Map, which is stored and made available to any smart device. The PA-II is available in two editions. The SD edition includes an onboard SD logger to record and store data without a WiFi connection. Please note: This sensor does not come with a power adaptor. Find a suitable OUTDOOR-rated adaptor here or use your own USB power source (any 5V, 1.2 to 2.4 amp adaptor will work).
Kenya Forest Club, Central Region – Kenya Forest Club
20 January 2024 2:53pm
Happy New Year WILDLabbers! What are you looking forward to in 2024?
2 January 2024 11:31am
2 January 2024 4:01pm
Excited for COP16 later this year in Colombia!
Other events of potential interest -
- World Biodiversity Forum
- European Congress on Conservation Biology
- North American Congress for Conservation Biology
- World Ecoacoustics Congress
- African Bioacoustics Conference
- (virtual) World Species Congress
- UNFCCC COP29
3 January 2024 8:48am
Some really great events to look forward to, thanks so much @carlybatist for sharing these!
Anyone going/presenting/talking at SICB?
1 January 2024 9:11pm
Apply to Beta test Instant Detect 2.0
11 May 2023 10:55am
21 December 2023 3:48am
Will you accept personal/hobbyist focused on conservation on their small plots of land (10-100 acres)?
I would, and know others, who would happily pay more than the official conservationists rate for the service, which could help to further subsidize the project. (Referring to your statement here: https://wildlabs.net/discussion/instant-detect-20-and-related-cost)
Seeking Host Organisations for Travel Scholarship Application
19 December 2023 12:54am
20 December 2023 3:07am
Hi Eva,
Me and my colleagues run a small NGO based on Yogyakarta in Indonesia, although our projects are spread around the country. One of our active project is working with the movement ecology of Sunda gharials in Berbak-Sembilang National Park. One of the other is for Malayan Giant Turtle conservation using one-plan approach, which we are planning to start in situ phase. We can't give you promise about anything, but are able to be the host organization and would love to talk the opportunity!
Cheers,
Dhanu
WILDLABS Colorado Conservation Tech Meetup
19 December 2023 12:04am
Watch now - The State of Conservation Technology: 3 Year Trends
13 December 2023 5:25pm
WILDLABS.net Scheduled Website Maintenance
Conservation of Kikuyu Escarpment Forest
1 December 2023 12:38pm
WILDLABS Awards 2024: Further Information
1 December 2023 11:00am
WILDLABS Awards 2024: Supporting accessible, affordable, and effective innovation for nature
1 December 2023 11:00am
WILDLABS AWARDS 2024 Webinar
30 November 2023 12:17pm
Wishlist for kit in a field-based Research Station or tech testing space?
27 November 2023 10:41am
28 November 2023 3:25am
Regine Weckauf over on linkedin:
'Little to do with research and tech development, but given how hard it is to attract and retain experienced staff to field based positions, I know it makes a difference how nice the space is. Just because it's the "field", shouldn't mean staff living in basic conditions, regardless of how many times we've been told to see it as a badge of honor. If you have the money, put in nice bathrooms, kitchen, living spaces, and private accommodation. Maybe even a nursery? It creates more local employment opportunities and people genuinely want to visit.'
28 November 2023 2:25pm
Love the idea for in-house gear/supplies! It can be SOO difficult to travel with batteries, electronics parts with airline regs, country policies, etc. and shipping recorders/trail cams/etc. gets VERY (prohibitively) pricey in some countries with customs and taxes. Would be great to have an in-country place to source that kind of equipment.
Housing educational resources related to that tech (in the form of people, print materials, computer tutorials) in-house would be similarly awesome. Particularly/especially in local languages.
Having in-country wet labs as well helps the eDNA/genetics folks, since sample import/export permitting can be (always seems to be?!) a nightmare, so if you can even just do PCR and/or extractions in-country that helps a ton.
In terms of overall field-station-wishlist - honestly, just the promise of continued funding and staff. Every field station I've been to or worked at is in a constant search for enough money to get through the next month/year, because the funding comes in the establish a station but then not to maintain it long-term. It's not sexy for a wishlist per se, but boy is it over-looked and much-needed.
@hikinghack from Dinalab would probably have lots of good insights on this!
29 November 2023 7:59pm
My suggestion would probably be a 3D printer and Solder Station with a stock of common components. With those two things you can solve most problems.
NSERC-CREATE Graduate Programs
27 November 2023 10:36am
Atos and WWF partner up to leverage technology to support biodiversity conservation
27 November 2023 9:32am
Freshwater and Community Conservation Remote Externship
27 November 2023 8:31am
ICOTEQ launch TAGRANGER® system of products
23 November 2023 1:25pm
Catch up with The Variety Hour: November 2023
16 November 2023 12:59pm
Have your say: Take the 2023 WILDLABS State of Conservation Technology Survey
15 November 2023 9:20am
The State of Conservation Technology 2023: Five Key Findings
15 November 2023 9:20am
The Ultimate Biodiversity Fact Sheet. 14 stats to convince people about the importance of nature.
9 November 2023 5:10pm
Insight; a secure online platform designed for sharing experiences of conservation tool use.
7 November 2023 1:01pm
A SPOTLIGHT ON CUTTING-EDGE BIOMONITORING TECHNOLOGIES
31 October 2023 9:09am
15 November 2023 6:10pm
31 January 2024 7:17pm
Takeaways from the First-ever Africa Climate Summit: Conservation Technology is Still New(ish)
27 October 2023 11:54am
Introducing The Debrief: Season 1
27 October 2023 10:48am
26 January 2024 8:49am
"Seychelles and South Africa did not allow Starlink to operate"
This is not good, has implications for anti-poaching measures.