Hi Luciano, 
My name is Carolina, and I am a Chilean PhD student working on human-carnivore conflict mitigation with innovative technologies in the temperate rainforest of southern Chile. In particular, my team and I are developing and testing acoustic devices that deter carnivores from attacking small domestic animals, in collaboration with a highly engaged rural community. I am currently studying the behavioral effects of these devices on carnivores, with the aim of applying this technology in rural areas with low-income families that raise poultry and small livestock.

If you are interested, please let me know. I saw your projects, and I think it would be very interesting to discuss the potential application of these devices to promote human–carnivore coexistence.

Best wishes!
Carolina

Hi Luciano,

My name is Pablo Saumann and I'm founder, director and live in a Private Conservation Project in Chile name Parque Valle los Ulmos. We are a group of people in the goal to protect and honor our Volcanic Ecosystem, run a sustainable settle in this land with high conservation value, and also run some sustainable productive production in low scale. This area was very affected by the recently 2015 eruption of the Calbuco Volcano, so we have a natural restoration process that have being studied by scientist from many places. We have being learning so much in this post eruption process, and understand that we have a responsibility to care, to learn and to share about Volcanic Ecosystems and the incredible nature response with this huge natural events. 

Our active conservation actions have being a lot about control the invasion of exotic species that  found a big opportunity with the open grassland areas and are threatening the natural restoration process. All our management have being chemical-free handling. Also we are working with human settle conflict with rats and bats, and all the challenges that involve implementation of low-impact infrastructure. 

We are now thinking about sharing information and promoting care about Volcanic Ecosystems in Chile at least, and our local community of Ensenada, that lives between two active Volcanos in a region full of public and private conservation projects. In our project there is a lot of space for innovations of many kind. 

We will love to share all our learnings and challenges and also looking for all kinds of collaborations to deal with our mission. 

I notice that Carolina Ugarte also replied to your message. She made a great job in our Park with her studies, we appreciate so much her work.

best wishes 

Pablo

One of the major considerations for bird study is that it doesn't disturb nesting birds. If too low in altitude, birds may perceive the drone as a threat and leave the nest. This allows opportunistic species to come in and take the eggs or chicks. This is why a good optic zoom and large photo sensor are key to high res images. If there was a quieter, smaller drone, it might not be perceived as a threat. 

Also, a lower altitude for disturbance might make oblique image capture easier.

Hi! I would be interested to learn more about your project. Would you send me your contact email? Mine is simicmelisa@gmail.com 

Thanks, Melisa

Hi Nikita,

 If you haven't already, I'd recommend reaching out to the folks at the Cornell Ornithology lab. They're really glued into all things bird. In particular, I remember seeing a presentation years ago about their project birdcasting, which was measuring bird migration via radar. One of their next steps was to connect small scale behavior to large scale movement data, and it sounds like your drone project could help fill that gap. 

Cheers,

Brandon

Such a great case study!!

want to join 2025 contest for humpback whale photos in Juneo Alaska of Kelp

To clarify, are you talking about a model that carries out automated detection of vocalizations? or a model that detects specific patterns of behavior/movement? I would suspect that the former is not something that may be impacted while training as the fundamental vocalizations/input is not going to change drastically (although see Derryberry et al., where they show variation in spectral characteristics of sparrows at short distance pre and post-covid lockdowns). 

Looking forward to capturing the first polar bear. On film of course.

Nice!

Thought I'd mention that Wildlife Security Innovations will have a booth there, demonstrating our new multi-camera, local AI camera trap that supports miniature high resolution thermal modules. I will be bringing these along.

Hi

This is great! 

So just to double check - there is no way to join online? I would love to be part of this conference. 

Thanks, Els van Lavieren

I'm sure others here can comment better than I on models for classifying animal sounds, but from an ML pint of view, a key concern is getting enough data. 10 recordings does not sound like a lot (although how long are they?) and 1000 epochs does sound like a lot. It is very possible that your model is just learning to memorize the inputs, and that it will generalise poorly.