Although they cover over 70% of our planet, only 0.6% of the world oceans are protected. It is estimated that we only know about 1 in 10 species in the ocean, which is unsurprising given that 90% of the ocean is more than half a mile deep and still remains largely unexplored. How might technology help us discover, understand and protect the vulnerable ecosystems below the waterline?
Marine Conservation is a fast-growing group in the WILDLABS community, capturing a wide variety of tech expertise within its member base, including those working with bioacoustic gear and hydrophones, AUVs and drones, sensors, machine learning, and more. By bringing together WILDLABS members from so many areas of conservation tech, the Marine Conservation group is the perfect place to collaborate on big, complex issues like marine biodiversity monitoring, coral reef health, plastic pollution, and sustainability.
The Marine Conservation group forum is also your place to chat about and solve the challenges unique to using conservation technology in marine environments. Whether you're struggling with deep-sea connectivity or salt water impacting gear longevity, or looking for remote solutions for long-term reef monitoring or biologging data collection, this group wants to help you explore the possibilities!
Check out some of the key marine conservation tech resources, conversations, and virtual events from across the WILDLABS platform:
Tutorials and Talks to Watch on Demand:
- Virtual Meetups: Developing cost-effective, open-source marine megafauna tracking, Jake Levenson
- Tech Tutors: How do I use open source remote sensing data to monitor fishing?, Max Schofield
- Virtual Meetups: eDNA for Aquatic Biodiversity, Alice Valentini
Case Studies, Tools, Research, and News:
- Southern Right Whales & Genome and Satellite Technology, Emma Carroll | eDNA & genomics, satellite data, biodiversity monitoring, climate change
- Building Experts Into AI, Whale Seeker | Machine learning, marine conservation, AI ethics
- Using AIS Data to Investigate the World’s Fishing Ports, Max Schofield | Remote sensing, data visualisation, fishing monitoring
- Small-scale fisheries and tech resources, Dan Steadman | Fishery monitoring, webinars, best practices
- Press Release: BAS Giant Iceberg Mission, British Antarctic Survey | Climate change, AUVs, remote sensing
- Case Study: Thermal imaging, drones, and loggerhead sea turtles, Megan Ossmann | FLIR, Duo Pro R camera, drones
- eDNA sampling to detect invasive snails in shipping ballast water, Gavin Shelton | Invasive species, eDNA, shipping
- Sustainable Fishing Challenges: Fish Catch Monitoring, Dan Steadman | Biologging, sensors, fishing monitoring
Conversations and Questions:
- Satellite tags for marine turtle recommendations | Alasdair Davies
- Calling all hydrophone users! | Team Open Acoustic Devices
- How difficult is it to build a buoy and constrain it in place? | Lindy Knowles
- Methods to detect Derelict Fishing Gear | Nandini Mehrotra
- Drone Mapping for Algal Blooms? | Harold Tay
- Minimising habitat impact of trawling gear | Dan Steadman
- Estimating carbon from 3d models of mangroves | Mark Brown
- Can we detect gillnets in turbid water? | Aurélie Shapiro
- New low cost DIY temperature loggers for reef monitoring | Harold Tay
- Machine learning to detect fish bomb blasts | Jamie Macaulay
Header Image: Emma Vogel
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- @JennaSea
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- @sandrzejaczek
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Movement ecologist working at Hopkins Marine Station. Specialise on large, predatory fishes (particularly sharks and rays).
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Board of Directors, Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group. Interests include AI applications supporting salmonid species recovery
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- @seabassphd
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Project manager for FishID
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Electrical Engineering Student| Robotics Club, Center For Innovation (CFI) | Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
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Marine biologist, cetaceans lover and bioacoustic's methods beginner (experience with sperm whale's click!)
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Zoological Society London (ZSL)
Water-landing fixed-wing drones in marine ecology and maritime surveillance in MPAs and beyond.
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Stanford University
Doctoral Research at Stanford University | Interested in data science and observational approaches for issues in coastal health
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Article
New app aims to take a bite out of illegal shark fin trade
Conservation International
Powered by artificial intelligence, a new app called Fin Finder enables customs inspectors to take a photo of a shark or ray fin and identify it within seconds. Developed by Conservation International in partnership...
14 June 2022
Article
Hundreds of tons of the toxic chemical have likely littered the ocean floor near Santa Catalina Island for decades.
4 June 2022
Article
"A drone emitting orca sounds will be used in attempt to guide the animal, whose health is fast deteriorating"
1 June 2022
June 2025
October 2025
event
Lacey Hughey and 3 more
June 2023
event
Stephanie O'Donnell
March 2023
event
Netty Cheruto
February 2023
event
Stephanie O'Donnell
| Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hey all!I'm looking for image datasets of Indo-Pacific fish species (Red Sea, if I'm being specific) for detection/classification.... |
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Marine Conservation | 2 years 6 months ago | |
| @Andrew_Hill I wonder if you could let us know more about the time keeping difference btw the regular AudioMoth and the HydroMoth (which is said to do better)? |
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Acoustics, Marine Conservation | 2 years 9 months ago | |
| Hello,The hydrophone_survey_results.pdf file is not opening. Is the link still working? I would be keen to see it. Thank you. |
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Marine Conservation | 2 years 10 months ago | |
| If you're looking to identify collaborators - probably lots of organizations listed in the Conservation Tech Directory would be interested (quick prelim search yields orgs like... |
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Marine Conservation, Open Source Solutions | 2 years 11 months ago | |
| Hi Wildlabbers, This week's Tech Tutor Jamie MacAulay is talking about how to use and analyze large acoustic data using... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Marine Conservation | 3 years 7 months ago | |
| Would certainly be cool to see a tutorial on this! Looking forward to that! |
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Marine Conservation, Sensors | 3 years 8 months ago | |
| Materials Engineer at Running Tide - https://jobs.lever.co/runningtide/f1f38773-1369-4a5c-a6ae-ce952a10ad3c Electrical Engineer at... |
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Marine Conservation | 3 years 9 months ago | |
| Hi Mauman. Did you have a specific application in mind? There are quite a few IoT systems but they all need to be pieced together. If there's a specific application... |
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Marine Conservation | 3 years 11 months ago | |
| "On a side note, I've discovered it's really hard to say "I'm interested in small buoys" without creating awkward silence in a room. "... |
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Marine Conservation | 4 years 4 months ago | |
| Hi Wildlabbers, Welcome back to Tech Tutors for season 2! This season's first episode featured Oceanmind's... |
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Marine Conservation, Geospatial, Sustainable Fishing Challenges | 4 years 5 months ago | |
| Hi @teds@vulcan.com and all, Please check out https://iot.wildbook.org Cloud-based data management and computer vision for photo ID using the WIldbook platform. We... |
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Marine Conservation | 4 years 6 months ago | |
| Hi Akiba, I made a mistake, I did manage to find some +/-0.05 degC thermistors for USD4 on Digikey, so the USD9 figure can be feasible in low quantitites. I actually... |
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Marine Conservation | 4 years 6 months ago |
