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Human-Wildlife Coexistence / Feed

Human-wildlife coexistence is a significant challenge that only grows as habitats shrink and other issues like climate change alter the natural world. Technologies like biologging gear have become essential for proactively reducing human-wildlife conflict before it escalates, and tech projects that seek to understand population ranges and behaviour can help people learn to live with wildlife as part of our own environments. If you're interested in using technology to enhance human-wildlife coexistence, this group is the place for you!

discussion

Lion Deterrence

Rokshana Bushra

29 February 2024 9:59pm

Hello! We are a group of students at UC Berkeley working to design a lion deterrence system that is more affordable and cost-effective for community livestock protection and human...

5 2
Kim Lane

4 March 2024 5:34am

I remember the study in EA when they painted cows with zebra strips to stop the Tsetse fly bites. Sometimes it is the simplest things that work

Read "Cows painted with zebra-like striping can avoid biting fly attack | PLOS One" on

Cows painted with zebra-like striping can avoid biting fly attack | PLOS One

Experimental and comparative studies suggest that the striped coats of zebras can prevent biting fly attacks. Biting flies are serious pests of livestock that cause economic losses in animal production. We hypothesized that cows painted with black and white stripes on their body could avoid biting fly attacks and show fewer fly-repelling behaviors. Six Japanese Black cows were assigned to treatments using a 3 × 3 Latin-square design. The treatments were black-and-white painted stripes, black painted stripes, and no stripes (all-black body surface). Recorded fly-repelling behaviors were head throw, ear beat, leg stamp, skin twitch, and tail flick. Photo images of the right side of each cow were taken using a commercial digital camera after every observation and biting flies on the body and each leg were counted from the photo images. Here we show that the numbers of biting flies on Japanese Black cows painted with black-and-white stripes were significantly lower than those on non-painted cows and cows painted only with black stripes. The frequencies of fly-repelling behaviors in cows painted with black-and-white stripes were also lower than those in the non-painted and black-striped cows. These results thus suggest that painting black-and-white stripes on livestock such as cattle can prevent biting fly attacks and provide an alternative method of defending livestock against biting flies without using pesticides in animal production, thereby proposing a solution for the problem of pesticide resistance in the environment.

Rob Appleby

8 March 2024 2:52pm

Hi @rokshanabushra 

So are you looking to replicate something like this?

https://predatorguard.com/products/predator-deterrent-light

This is, in principle at least, fairly simple, as it's really just some red LEDs and a small solar-battery power system. You could buy one of the commercial options and do a teardown (or I can do it if you like, as I'd be interested to find out exactly what they are doing). 

In lieu of that, I suspect a light-dependent resistor is probably used to control the lights coming on at night (i.e. something along these lines: https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Make-LDR-Darkness-Sensor-Circuit-Simple-DIY/).

If you employ some sort of 'blink' or flashing protocol (you could use a 555 timer to keep the costs down), you could save quite a bit of power (compared to running the lights constantly). For example, something along these lines: https://www.instructables.com/Adjustable-SingleDual-LED-Flasher-Using-555-Timer-/ You could also add a PIR motion sensor so it only comes on when nearby motion is detected, but of course the costs of building goes up. 

There are also a few off-the-shelf flasher designs that might be cheap enough already to consider (e.g. https://www.ledsales.com.au/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=142_143&products_id=2820). This seems like a reasonably good option for low power, although I have no idea how well it actually works...You can also buy LEDs that flash by themselves (e.g. https://www.ledsales.com.au/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=148_152_159&products_id=2951).

If you think sounds might also help (e.g. human noises etc.), check out the Boombox from Freaklabs: https://freaklabs.org/technology/boombox/ and it should be possible to add 'eyes' in the form of reflectors, or, some kind of LEDs that activate at the same time as the sound. You could contact Akiba or Jacinta about it as I am sure they'd help if they can: https://freaklabs.org/about/#:~:text=providers%20including%20ARGOS.-,the%20team,-Chris%20%E2%80%98Akiba%E2%80%99%20Wang

Anyway, happy to help if I can and all the best for the project.

Cheers,

Rob

 

Priyank Shah

8 March 2024 4:11pm

Hi Rokshana,

Maybe you can try this product from India called ANIDERS - 

 I think this product would help you a lot. This is their website - 

See full post
discussion

Tools for automating image augmentation 

Lars Holst Hansen

26 January 2024 2:33pm

Does anyone know of tools to automate image augmentation and manipulation. I wish to train ML image recognition models with images in which the target animal (and false targets)...

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Lars Holst Hansen

16 February 2024 7:42am

Hi @arky !

Thanks for your reply.

I am running into pytorch/torchvision incompatibility issues when trying to run your script.

Which versions are you using?

Best regards,

Lars

 

Arky

18 February 2024 11:05am

@Lars_Holst_Hansen  Here is the information you requested. Also run Yolov8 in multiple remote environments without any issues.  Perhaps you'll need to use a virtual environment (venv et al) or conda to remedy incompatibility issues. 

$ yolo checks
Ultralytics YOLOv8.1.4 🚀 Python-3.10.12 torch-1.13.1+cu117 CUDA:0 (Quadro T2000, 3904MiB)
Setup complete ✅ (16 CPUs, 62.5 GB RAM, 465.0/467.9 GB disk)

OS                  Linux-6.5.0-17-generic-x86_64-with-glibc2.35
Environment         Linux
Python              3.10.12
Install             pip
RAM                 62.54 GB
CPU                 Intel Core(TM) i7-10875H 2.30GHz
CUDA                11.7

matplotlib          ✅ 3.5.1>=3.3.0
numpy               ✅ 1.26.3>=1.22.2
opencv-python       ✅ 4.7.0.72>=4.6.0
pillow              ✅ 10.2.0>=7.1.2
pyyaml              ✅ 6.0.1>=5.3.1
requests            ✅ 2.31.0>=2.23.0
scipy               ✅ 1.11.4>=1.4.1
torch               ✅ 1.13.1>=1.8.0
torchvision         ✅ 0.14.1>=0.9.0
tqdm                ✅ 4.66.1>=4.64.0
psutil              ✅ 5.9.8
py-cpuinfo          ✅ 9.0.0
thop                ✅ 0.1.1-2209072238>=0.1.1
pandas              ✅ 1.5.3>=1.1.4
seaborn             ✅ 0.12.2>=0.11.0
See full post
discussion

Passionate engineer offering funding and tech solutions pro-bono.

Krasi

23 January 2024 12:06pm

My name is Krasi Georgiev and I run an initiative focused on providing funding and tech solutions for stories with a real-world impact. The main reason is that I am passionate...

2 1
Danilo

26 January 2024 3:18pm

Hi Krasi! Greetings from Brazil!



That's a cool journey you've started! Congratulations. And I felt like theSearchLife resonates with the work I'm involved round here. In a nutshell, I live at the heart of the largest remaining of Atlantic forest in the planet - one of the most biodiverse biomes that exist. The subregion where I live is named after and bathed by the "Rio Sagrado" (Sacred River), a magnificent water body with a very rich cultural significance to the region (it has served as a safe zone for fleeing slaves). Well, the river and the entire bioregion is currently under the threat of a truly devastating railroad project which, to say the least is planned to cut through over 100 water springs! 



In face of that the local community (myself included) has been mobilizing to raise awareness of the issue and hopefully stop this madness (fueled by strong international forces). One of the ways we've been fighting this is through the seeking of the recognition of the sacred river as an entity of legal rights, who can manifest itself in court, against such threats. And to illustrate what this would look like, I've been developing this AI (LLM) powered avatar for the river, which could maybe serve as its human-relatable voice. An existing prototype of such avatar is available here. It has been fine-tuned with over 20 scientific papers on the Sacred River watershed.



And right now myself and other are mobilizing to manifest the conditions/resources to develop a next version of the avatar, which would include remote sensing capacities so the avatar is directly connected to the river and can possibly write full scientific reports on its physical properties (i.e. water quality) and the surrounding biodiversity. In fact, myself and 3 other members of the WildLabs community have just applied to the WildLabs Grant program in order to accomplish that. Hopefully the results are positive.



Finally, it's worth mentioning that our mobilization around providing an expression medium for the river has been multimodal, including the creation of a shortfilm based on theatrical mobilizations we did during a fest dedicated to the river and its surrounding more-than-human communities. You can check that out here:



 

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/850179762



 

Let's chat if any of that catches your interest!

Cheers!

Krasi

2 February 2024 1:22pm

Hi Danilo. you seem very passionate about this initiative which is a good start.
It is an interesting coincidence that I am starting another project for the coral reefs in the Philipines which also requires water analytics so I can probably work on both projects at the same time.

Let's that have a call and discuss, will send you a pm with my contact details

There is a tech glitch and I don't get email notifications from here.

See full post
discussion

Landscape of technology solution for African lion conservation

Jacobo Domingo Gil

15 January 2024 11:03am

I am currently begining to research the topic of African Lion conservation, and in particular human-lion interaction, from a technological perspective. I would like to get an...

11 1
Jacobo Domingo Gil

29 January 2024 10:25am

Hi Simon,

Thanks for your reply. I would be interested in having a chat with you and hear more about the work you are doing! Lets connect and we can try to schedule a call in the coming days.

Thank you,
Best,

Jacobo

Jacobo Domingo Gil

29 January 2024 11:03am

Hi Maureen,

Thank you very much for your insights. I would definitely like to connect with you and discuss this further! I will reach out to you so we can potentially schedule a quick call and chat about this further.

Thank you,
Best regards,

Craig Rackstraw

30 January 2024 10:47am

Hi Jacobo,

We have launched a new tracking/logging/finding technology which you may find of interest https://www.tagranger.com/   

Based on LoRaWAN (but with yor own handheld gateway) you can communicate with your Tags in real time.  As well as requesting current GPS locations from long distances away you can also use the integrated ranging tools which give you distance to your Tag in metres when you get closer.  

Key features:

LoRaWAN (tested up to 21km line of sight) No infrastructure required, but you can also add it to your own LoRaWAN network.

UWB ranging gives distance (in metres) to the Tag up to 150m away

Hybrid Ranging combines the equivalent of a VHF pinger from a few km away (line of sight) with the UWB ranging when you get closer

Log Download remotely using UWB radio

Ultra light 39g Tag

Power Efficiency Defined by your configuration profie, 2 days to 4 years!

Let me know if you would like any further help with this.

Craig

See full post
discussion

How are Outdoor Fire Detection Systems Adapted for Small Forest Areas, Considering the Predominance of Indoor Fire Detectors?

Aditya Pal

8 January 2024 4:27pm

How are fire detection mechanisms tailored for outdoor environments, particularly in small forest areas, given that most fire and smoke detectors are designed for indoor use?

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Bill Gray

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. 

Read "Classic - Air Quality Monitor | AQI PM2.5 Indoor/Outdoor Sensor – PurpleAir" on PurpleAir

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).

PurpleAir

 

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discussion

Apply to Beta test Instant Detect 2.0

Sam Seccombe

11 May 2023 10:55am

Hi WildLabs,ZSL is looking for Beta testers for Instant Detect 2.0. If you are a conservationist, scientist or wildlife ranger with experience working with innovative...

1 2
Sean Roberts

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)

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discussion

Seeking Host Organisations for Travel Scholarship Application

Eva Neill

19 December 2023 12:54am

Hi all,I'm Eva, a final year undergraduate studying Joint Honours Biology and Geography at the University of St Andrews.  I've recently joined the WildLabs community in...

1 0
Herdhanu Jayanto

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

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discussion

Thermal cameras for monitoring visitors in highly vulnerable conservation areas

Alex González

21 June 2022 3:44pm

Hi everybody, Im Alex González, a consultant and researcher in sustainable tourism and conservation. I'm currently consulting a conservation organisation for the development...

7 0
Kim Hendrikse

15 December 2023 8:09pm

Hi,



This is a really late answer but I was new to wildlabs then. I have a security appliance that uses state of the AI models and user defined polygon areas of interest that generates video alerts of intrusions in typically under a second.

Although its setup to install automatically on an NVidia AI on the edge boxes of your intentions were to monitor a great deal of cameras you could also install it on a desktop with a high end GPU for very high performance. At home I use a desktop with an rtx 2080ti and monitor around 15 cameras and a thermal imaging camera (old one).

I have also tested a high end model (yolov7) on a high end thermal imaging camera image and it works fine as well.

Thermal yolov7

Thermal imaging cameras are hellishly expensive though and I’ve found that new extremely light sensitive cameras like the HIKvision colorvu series almost obsoletes them in terms of people detection at night at a fraction of the cost.

If you are interested I’d be happy to show you a demo in a video meeting sometime if you like. I’m pretty sure it would meeting all your intrusion detection and alerting needs.

My project page is

https://github.com/hcfman/sbts-install
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Link

How 400km solar-powered fence reduces human-wildlife conflict - The Standard

Esther Githinji

31 October 2023 7:35am

An electric, solar-powered fence erected by the Rhino Ark Charitable Trust partnering with the Kenya Wildlife Service completed in 2009 evolved into the longest conservation barrier that safeguards vital forests in the Aberdare Conservation Area fostering peaceful coexistence.

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discussion

Seismic detectors

Nilanga Jayasinghe

20 December 2015 1:10pm

Hello community, Is anyone familiar with, or using, seismic detection technology to prevent HWC? At WWF, we have been looking into the possibility of using devices with seismic...

12 0
Nilanga Jayasinghe

31 August 2018 2:51pm

Hi Nilaksha,

Congratulations! That is great news! Please do keep us posted on how it goes and do let us know if you need varied field sites in which to test the tools. @Teun , how's your prototype coming along?

Best,

Nilanga

Antoine Ede

30 March 2021 6:01pm

Dear all, any update on this subject?

 

All the best.

Nilaksha Rathnayake

29 October 2023 6:39pm

Hi Antoine, 
Sorry about the late reply. The field trials were abandoned mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We're planning to improve our prototype and conduct field trials in this December. I'll post an update here. 
regards

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Link

Horizon call for EU Human-Wildlife conflict experts

David Blažević

23 October 2023 10:34am

Hi, I represent a consortium (CRO/FI/DE) which plans to apply to the call in the link: HORIZON-CL6-2024-FARM2FORK-01-1 Agro-pastoral/outdoor livestock systems and wildlife management If you have a research idea in the scope of this call please do not hesitate to...

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article

Restoring the Mara Elephant Population Using Coexistence Tech Solutions with Mara Elephant Project's Wilson Sairowua

Esther Githinji

20 October 2023 1:31pm

Listen in on our interview with Mara Elephant Project’s Tracking Manager, Wilson Sairowua, as he explains how MEP is using software, geofencing and drone technologies to resolve human-elephant conflict across Maasai...

2 2
Frank van der Most

27 May 2024 3:54pm

Super interesting interview! I especially liked the last minutes where Wilson Sairowua explains about the experimental farm to see which crops elephants like and dislike. Just...
Esther Githinji

28 May 2024 8:12am

Great suggestion @Frank_van_der_Most ! It's really interesting to see conservation tech interacting with other forms of environmental tech. There is definitely room for effective...
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discussion

What Biologgers are you using?

Holly Cormack

30 August 2023 10:44am

Hello biologging community!My name is Holly Cormack and I’m the new Conservation Technology Intern in the WILDLABS team. We are researching what different...

9 11
Stephanie O'Donnell

7 September 2023 10:57am

Interesting. interesting. I'm probably jumping the gun here but I'm curious - are you getting any trends on types of biologgers or specific manufacturers people are talking about? Or is everyone using different tags/manufacturers? 

Stephanie O'Donnell

7 September 2023 11:00am

Ah! It's great to find out about your tags - great video, thanks for sharing. We'd love to hear from some of your users about their experiences with your tags! Would you be able to share the poll with your user community? 

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