WILDLABS logoWildlabs.net : The conservation technology network

WILDLABS logoWildlabs.net : The conservation technology network

Group

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!

article

In case you missed it... (no. 1)

Stephanie O'Donnell

12 September 2023 11:49am

Five #tech4wildlife people, projects and updates that caught our attention this month. An AI supported bear early warning system, a project that's connecting indigenous communities with high speed internet, exploring...

1 0
Lars Holst Hansen

13 September 2023 6:23am

Hi Steph! Nice with this "sporadic series"! The bear alarm in China reminds me of the Bear Repeller by the Hack the Planet guys:/Lars
See full post
Link

Alibaba Cloud's Geo Fencing System in the Mara

Esther Githinji

1 September 2023 12:27pm

Wilson Sairowua, Tracking Manager at Mara Elephant Project (MEP) narrates how tech4change, Alibaba Cloud's Geo Fencing System paired with collaring has helped to mitigate human-elephant conflict across Maasai Mara and has facilitated a 72% increase in elephants in the Mara...

0
Link

Born Free Uses Smart Maps to Save Lions, Solve Human-Wildlife Conflict

Esther Githinji

17 August 2023 2:35pm

Location intelligence helps Born Free Kenya understand where communities and lions are in conflict. Outreach to fortify cattle corrals is guided by smart maps and spatial analysis.

0
article

Human-Elephant Conflict Tech Solution in Tsavo: NdovuCare

Esther Githinji and 1 more

7 August 2023 1:36pm

Read our interview with Sandra Maryanne, a young conservation tech innovator raised in Taita, Ivarenyi with first-hand experience on the challenges of human-elephant conflict within her community. To address this, she...

3 1
CathyNj

30 April 2024 12:48am

Persistence. Watching from where she started and that she is still at it despite the challenges is inspiring. I will visit her soon to see first hand how Ndovu care operates. 
Esther Githinji

15 May 2024 9:34am

Hello @Sandra254 :) Ndovu Care is perfect to feature in the Product section of The Inventory - I've gone ahead and created a new...
See full post
discussion

Interested in being part of the Enduata Emaa CBO's Green Planet Ambassadors Project in Amboseli? 

Esther Githinji

5 July 2023 10:28am

About the Enduata Emaa Community Based OrganizationEnduata Emaa Community-based Organization was founded in 2021 by its Chairman Samuel...

1 0
Esther Githinji

25 July 2023 1:14pm

@richardturere Hello :) and a warm welcome to WILDLABS! Here is the link to @Lekato Samuel Lekato - Founder and Chairman, Enduata Emaa CBO. Sam is interested in conservation technology focused on how to keep wild animals away from community homesteads in Amboseli and I reckon your Lion Lights could help. I'll let you two take on the conversation from here. Thanks! 

See full post
discussion

Human/animal detection/alerting

Kim Hendrikse

20 June 2023 12:07pm

Hi all, I've just discovered this site. I have an open source project that would be ideally suited for helping in human/wildlife conflict situations. The project is actually an...

2 1
Lars Holst Hansen

30 June 2023 12:53pm

Hi Kim! 

Welcome to Wildlabs!

This looks like an amazing project! I see multiple uses for our ecosystem monitoring in Greenland - both for the research/monitoring part but also for safety - polar bears roaming around camp!

I will look into your github and may get back to you!

Cheers,

Lars 

Kim Hendrikse

21 July 2023 9:57am

Super, nice to hear. BTW, this project appears new, but it's been in operation b yseveral parties for more than 10 years, so it's mature.

No one is playing with it yet as I only just released it to open source last year. However, it was evolved since 2008 and the main state machine was almost the same as it is now in 2011. I added the the AI computer vision in 2019.

I believe it has a lot of features that make it practical to use, particularly as I'm using the best available object detectors for example, but also they way I make the state control very flexible. Just waiting for some people to try it :)

BTW, I've been adding support for the latest Orin Jetson series SBCs but still have to come back to finishing this release off. I've been somewhat distracted with my audio localization project which I want to finish to the point of releasing and and writing it up before finishing the Jetson Orin release of the security project.

See full post
discussion

Automated Elephant-detection system

Neil Sheridan

27 October 2016 10:14pm

Hi everyone, I thought I would introduce my automated elephant-detection system, that I have been working on over the summer for the hackaday prize. It was a finalist in...

31 1
rakeshkalva

12 June 2020 5:53am

Hi,

This is rakesh kalva from India. I have been working on human-elephant conflict in the state of Andhra Pradesh for the past 5 years. This is a cool idea. I have used camera traps to identify movement and individual elephants for demographic data. 

Some field based observations of using camera traps for elephants:

1. I usually place the camera traps on forest paths and many of the images we captured wernt of the complete elephant. Its just the legs and trunk. Wont that effect the detection by the software as to wether its an elephant or not?

2. In case of flash cameras , quite a lot of our cameras got damaged by elephants. So we were going for IR cameras. WIll it work for IR cameras as well?

3. Another issue is with the cameras being stolen by locals or poachers.

4. So we gave up all this and are using a simple trip technology with a switch attached to a door bell attached to a rope placed at a height of 7-8 feet. In this landscape no other animal is at this heigh so when the alarm is triggered we know its an elephant.

5. Elephants operate in a large territor, so will it be feasable to use this technology? 

But there are some interesting research questions that can be answered with this technology you are developing. Kindly let me know if i can be of any help on field.

 

Regards,

Rakesh Kalva

Wildlife Biologist

Juliana Masseloux

18 May 2022 3:48am

Hi Neil,

I am a project manager for Zoological Society of London's Thailand Programme. We work in the southern Western Forest Complex of Thailand, which is a large landscape of relatively contiguous forest surrounded by development and agriculture and thus rife with human-elephant conflict. We are currently looking to co-develop or pilot low-cost cameras or acoustic sensors for real-time detection of elephants at HEC hotspots within the landscape. Current issues we've been facing are high rates of non-target stimuli triggers which clog up the cloud (so the automated classification of elephants would be useful to limit notifications) and the high cost of conventional cellular camera systems. I am curious to know the current status of your Elephant AI system. The most recent update I've found on your hackaday is of the combination with a deterrence system, which is very promising. Feel free to email me at juliana.masseloux@zsl.org or reply to this message.

Cheers,

Juliana

Kim Hendrikse

20 June 2023 1:32pm

What's the definition of low cost really? Using various cnn models for objection detection the results can be very accurate. The costs would vary. The cheapest Jetson Nano (Old model) is about 150 euros but case, SSD and camera and it can run yolov4 full model, 416x416 image size.

However, if you go the next step, the jetson Nano orin, then you start about 500-700 euros for the board, but the model can run a full size yolov6 model which is extremely good. Elephants are so unique looking, you could likely eliminate all false positives.

You would need to attach cellular modems or something like that I expect but these sound like a different thing to a cellular camera system that you mention and thus likely a lot cheaper.

The Jetson SBC's do use quite a lot of power.

See full post
Link

How lights help keep lions and livestock alive in Kenya

Esther Githinji

31 May 2023 3:31pm

Richard Turere from Kitengela, invents flashing lights to mitigate human wildlife conflict. He came up with “Lion Lights,” a system that deters predators such as lions from attacking livestock using flashing lights. Operating predominantly on solar energy, with the ability to...

0
discussion

Looking to contribute

Dannii

27 April 2023 2:41am

Hi everybody 👋🏽,I'm a UX designer, and I design interfaces and improve user experiences/flows. I would love to contribute to conservation tech / climate tech, especially saving...

3
See full post
discussion

Rhino horns in medicine 

matilde stella

2 April 2023 2:22pm

Hi everyone,I'm new here :)I'm doing my thesis of biology bachelor about Rhino poaching. I wanted to ask here if yu have some articles about Lab data of the inefficiency of the...

0
See full post
discussion

Moveapps: EMAC23 Coding Challenge

Andrea Koelzsch

3 March 2023 7:58am

Motivated by having been named a Conservation Tech Award grantee in 2022, we are launching the EMAC23 coding challenge to Equip MoveApps for Conservation.Pick one of five use...

4 0
Lars Holst Hansen

3 March 2023 3:12pm

Super initiative! I hope you get a lot of entries to this coding challenge!

See full post
Link

Climate crisis drives a rise in human-wildlife conflicts

Ellie Warren

1 March 2023 10:51pm

New article about how climate change and human-wildlife conflict go hand-in-hand. Would be interesting to hear from our climate change and HWC groups about how climate scientists and community members who are innovating HWC tech solutions could work together collaboratively to...

0