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Drones / Feed

Used to pick up signals from tracking gear on the ground, collect images of wildlife and habitats from the air, gather acoustic data with specialized hydrophones, or even collect snot samples from whales' blowholes, drones are capable of collecting high-resolution data quickly, noninvasively, and at relatively low cost.

discussion

Interview for Technologies in Conservation

Nikolas

24 November 2022 10:07am

Dear Wildlabs community, my name is Nikolas and I am a Master's Student from Lisbon. Like many of you, I grew up with a great passion for the wildlife that we are surrounded...

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Carly Batist

16 January 2023 2:42pm

I'd be happy to chat with you if you wanted! My expertise is within passive acoustic monitoring particularly. The Conservation Tech Directory might be useful for you in identifying relevant actors within the space.

Pen-Yuan Hsing

17 January 2023 5:12pm

My original background is in ecology and conservation, and am now in the elected leadership of the Gathering for Open Science Hardware which convenes researchers developing open source tech for science. I am not working on a specific piece of technology right now, but am happy to contribute some higher-level views for your interview if that helps.

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Crowdfunding Aerial Baseline Study of Ghost Gear in Koh Phangan, Thailand

Sol Milne

18 December 2022 11:06am

We are developing a project in Thailand, using drones to locate lost & discarded fishing gear across Koh Phangan, Thailand. We're 86% there & only need $1500 to get us over the line. If you can help us, we would really appreciate it! This project uses drones to create...

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Read "Using drones to find ghost gear in Koh Phangan, Thailand & study the impacts on marine megafauna | Experiment" on https://experiment.com/projects/using-drones-to-study-ghost-gear-amp-marine-megafauna-in-koh-phangan-thailand

Using drones to find ghost gear in Koh Phangan, Thailand & study the impacts on marine megafauna | Experiment

crowdfunding science research funding crowdsourcing experiment openaccess

https://experiment.com/projects/using-drones-to-study-ghost-gear-amp-marine-megafauna-in-koh-phangan-thailand
careers

12 PhD Positions - WildDrone

Jake Burton

1 December 2022 4:45pm

The WildDrone team are looking for 12 PhD candidates to join the "WildDrone - Autonomous Drones for Nature Conservation Missions" Marie-Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Network

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discussion

Picking up signal of GPS tag

Sol Milne

10 November 2022 11:29am

Hi all! Has anyone been able to collect any ID information from a GPS tag, by circling above with a drone? Thinking about FAD detection at sea.Thanks!

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Sol Milne

16 November 2022 10:54am

Thanks Carly! I've been in awe of what Wildlife Drones is doing, but as you say my work at the moment is focussed on existing GPS units rather than telemetry for tracking. I'll still reach out & ask though. Thanks for your help! :)

Sol Milne

16 November 2022 10:55am

Hi Kim! Thanks for sharing, this is really interesting! I'll check out the website & see what I can find out about the mechanics of the device. Thanks again!

Thomas Gray

21 November 2022 5:25pm

Hey Sol, 

The only way for you to collect information from a GPS tag attached to a FAD is if that tag transmits that data to the drone. Unfortunately most receiver packages are a bit too large for hobbyist-style drones (from what I've seen). 

Depending on the range/distance from shore, you might be able to have a shore-based receiver system?  

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careers

Shark Lab Data Analyst

Carly Batist

24 October 2022 7:12pm

This position (at California State University, Long Beach) provides data management & analysis support to Shark Lab research operations including shark tagging, active tracking, receiver data, AUV & UAV data...

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discussion

Conservation Tech Directory - new update!

Carly Batist

29 August 2022 2:38pm

New directory update from @gracieermi & I! And an extra special one as we've just passed our 1-year anniversary! Super exciting to see how far this has come! Check it out:...

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Liz Ferguson

23 September 2022 5:26pm

Congrats on the milestone Carly and Gracie!

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event

Become a Scientist Pilot!

David Johnston

12 August 2022 5:20pm

Many drone training programs are conducted as though they are an end unto themselves, with becoming a remote pilot representing the primary goal. Our approach to aviation focuses on a set of inspirational environmental...

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Protecting endangered megafauna through AI analysis of drone images in a low-connectivity setting: a case study from Namibia

Zoe Jewell

9 August 2022 5:08pm

Just sharing our latest paper in PeerJ that describes the use of drones in a low-connectivity setting to help monitor and protect megaherbivores. Please contact zoe@wildtrack.org for any information.Thanks everyone!

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Read "Protecting endangered megafauna through AI analysis of drone images in a low-connectivity setting: a case study from Namibia [PeerJ]" on PeerJ

Protecting endangered megafauna through AI analysis of drone images in a low-connectivity setting: a case study from Namibia [PeerJ]

Assessing the numbers and distribution of at-risk megafauna such as the black rhino (Diceros bicornis) is key to effective conservation, yet such data are difficult to obtain. Many current monitoring technologies are invasive to the target animals and expensive. Satellite monitoring is emerging as a potential tool for very large animals (e.g., elephant) but detecting smaller species requires higher resolution imaging. Drones can deliver the required resolution and speed of monitoring, but challenges remain in delivering automated monitoring systems where internet connectivity is unreliable or absent. This study describes a model built to run on a drone to identify in situ images of megafauna. Compared with previously reported studies, this automated detection framework has a lower hardware cost and can function with a reduced internet bandwidth requirement for local network communication. It proposes the use of a Jetson Xavier NX, onboard a Parrot Anafi drone, connected to the internet throughout the flight to deliver a lightweight web-based notification system upon detection of the target species. The GPS location with the detected target species images is sent using MQ Telemetry Transport (MQTT), a lightweight messaging protocol using a publisher/subscriber architecture for IoT devices. It provides reliable message delivery when internet connection is sporadic. We used a YOLOv5l6 object detection architecture trained to identify a bounding box for one of five objects of interest in a frame of video. At an intersection over union (IoU) threshold of 0.5, our model achieved an average precision (AP) of 0.81 for black rhino (our primary target) and 0.83 for giraffe (Giraffa giraffa). The model was less successful at identifying the other smaller objects which were not our primary targets: 0.34, 0.25, and 0.42 for ostrich (Struthio camelus australis), springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis) and human respectively. We used several techniques to optimize performance and overcome the inherent challenge of small objects (animals) in the data. Although our primary focus for the development of the model was rhino, we included other species classes to emulate field conditions where many animal species are encountered, and thus reduce the false positive occurrence rate for rhino detections. To constrain model overfitting, we trained the model on a dataset with varied terrain, angle and lighting conditions and used data augmentation techniques (i.e., GANs). We used image tiling and a relatively larger (i.e., higher resolution) image input size to compensate for the difficulty faced in detecting small objects when using YOLO. In this study, we demonstrated the potential of a drone-based AI pipeline model to automate the detection of free-ranging megafauna detection in a remote setting and create alerts to a wildlife manager in a relatively poorly connected field environment.

PeerJ
discussion

A Triphibian Surveillance Vehicle

Ayush Jamdar

9 July 2022 2:23pm

Hey all!I am Ayush, a core team member of my school's Robotics Club (Center For Innovation, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras). There is one project - The Triphibian - we are...

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discussion

Cofounder needed

Joyeeta

9 June 2022 4:23pm

Hey all ! if you have an idea that you want to turn into a company- I would love to help. I have enough hardware/software knowledge (was an engineer) to be the cofounder of a...

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Lonnie McCaskill

17 June 2022 1:14pm

What about developing a drone conservation training course for field conservation staff teaching specific skills for specific research needs. 

Pen-Yuan Hsing

17 June 2022 6:54pm

How exciting @Joyeeta ! I'd love to learn more about the companies and projects you worked on, can you share more info about them?

I once chatted to an entrepreneurial advisor with a couple of my conservation tech ideas, and he said my ideas are good/impactful but don't make for a product worth millions of $$$ of turnover per year that would interest investors. So I am very curious about how you got your conservation tech businesses off the ground!

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discussion

Airships for Wildlife Management and Research

Shivam Garg

9 December 2021 7:13am

I am Shivam Garg and I work with Cloudline. Cloudline designs and operates carbon-free autonomous airships (link to the video) that combine the lifting power of helium with...

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Joyeeta

7 June 2022 1:04pm

Hi

 

I can help...I think I have a few ideas where this can work.

 

Thanks

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