Sensors already equip a range of tools to enhance monitoring capacity for conservation. Some of the higher bandwidth technologies, like camera traps and acoustic monitoring systems, have been essential elements of the conservation toolkit for decades, and thus have enough users that we've created dedicated WILDLABS groups to address them. But a whole range of lower bandwidth sensors beyond these core technologies are being increasingly integrated into conservation monitoring systems, and offer rich new insights into the wildlife and ecosystems we're all working to protect. As with many technologies, cost and access have historically been challenges to the adoption of new sensors, but with low-cost and open-source solutions on the rise, we're excited to see what the future of this space holds.
Getting Started with Sensors:
- Watch Shah Selbe's Tech Tutors episode on scaling FieldKit, an open-source conservation sensor toolbox, from a project to a successful conservation tech product.
- Check out our Virtual Meetup about Low-Cost, Open-Source Solutions in conservation tech, including a talk by Alasdair Davies on the Arribada Initiative's work with thermal sensors in early warning systems.
- For a more in-depth introduction, watch the first video in our datalogger mini-series: Freaklabs: How do I get started with Arduino?
In this group, you'll meet others who are using and innovating diverse sensors in their work, discuss ways to make sensors more effective & accessible for conservationists, learn about what sensors are already helping us accomplish in the field, and have the opportunity to ask and answer questions. Join this group to get started!
Header image: Emma Vogel, University of Tromsø
No showcases have been added to this group yet.
I am a scientist with research background in evolutionary-ecological genomics and have impact at the senate level to prevent a government viral biocontrol release. UK based and looking to connect with passionate dreamers ready to shift paradigms
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Woodland Park Zoo
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Zoological Society London (ZSL)
Technical Project Manager in ZSL's Conservation Technology Unit
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finding ecological solutions using sound and conservation tech
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Currently a data scientist in industry working on mechanistic models of risk, previously worked on modeling coral reefs. I am interested in the potential for emerging technologies and new ideas to help us solve environmental crises.
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Fauna & Flora
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- @Phillip_Swart
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I'm a conservationist working in the Vulture conservation space in South Africa with a huge passion for technology.
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Data Scientist/AI Engineer, Birdwatcher, Trail Runner: here to learn about conservation tech & contribute where I can.
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- @ctjack1109
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I am a graduate student at Purdue University developing low-cost IoT technology to measure wetland methane emissions. This, paired with my undergraduate education in Wildlife and Fisheries Resources, has me naturally drawn to advanced tech coupled with conservation issues.
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- @diego_ellis_soto
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University of California & California Academy of Sciences
Biodiversity |Technology | Socio-Ecological Systems | Wildlife Ecology | Remote Sensing | Conservation | K12STEM-education | Music | diegoellissoto.org
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- @Alawa
- | She/Her
Passionate wildlife and biodiversity conservationist
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Article
Eddy Expedition Log: Chasing Eddies
WILDLABS Team
This month, we're following along with the scientists and engineers from the Simons Collaboration on Ocean Processes and Ecology (SCOPE) and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) who working together to...
10 April 2018
Article
Eddy Expedition Log: Setting Off to Explore Eddies
WILDLABS Team
If you have ever flown over the Pacific and looked down from the window seat, the water seems still. Viewed from this distance, the water appears stagnant with unmoving dashes of waves. This picture strikes discordantly...
3 April 2018
Funding
The Plant-Powered Camera Trap Challenge
Alasdair Davies
Are you an architect, engineer, designer or a scientist? Can you design and manufacture a prototype open source plant-BES (bio electrochemical system) to power a camera trap and environmental sensors in tropical forests...
3 April 2018
Article
#Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge 2018: Our Top 10
WILDLABS Team
Hundreds of people joined our #Tech4Wildlife photo challenge this year, showcasing all the incredible ways tech is being used to support wildlife conservation. We've seen proximity loggers on Tasmanian Devils in...
3 March 2018
Funding
Landsense Innovation Challenge
WILDLABS Admin
Empowering communities to monitor & report on their environment
19 February 2018
Article
‘The Field’… Say the words ‘The Field’ to a group of conservationists and it will immediately conjure up vivid memories of everything from sticky wet rainforests to burning dusty deserts. What’s more, it’s almost...
17 January 2018
Article
Congratulations to Zoohackathon winners, team ODINN!
Zoological Society London (ZSL)
Following the UK Government’s landmark announcement of plans to introduce a complete ban on the domestic trade in ivory, it was fitting that a new machine learning product designed to tackle the supply end of this...
6 December 2017
Article
FIT Cheetahs
Larissa Slaney
A new research project is looking to investigate whether technology combined with the ancient skills and knowledge of Namibian trackers can help save cheetahs from extinction. Called FIT Cheetahs, the research project...
4 December 2017
Article
With Arctic sea ice disappearing, can advanced sensor technologies provide insights into an ecosystem on the brink?
30 November 2017
Article
HWC Tech Challenge Winners Announced
WILDLABS Team
We are delighted to announce that British conservation technologist Alasdair Davies and the Dutch team of Laurens de Groot and Tim van Dam from the ShadowView Foundation are the winners of the first international Human...
1 November 2017
Article
HWC Tech Challenge Update: Meet the Judges
WILDLABS Team
Our panel of international experts has been hard at work reviewing the 47 proposals we recieved for innovative technological tools to address human wildlife conflict. The panelists have systematically been assessing the...
20 October 2017
Article
Download New Conservation Tech Guidelines: Camera Traps, Acoustics and LiDAR
Paul Glover-Kapfer
The inherent complexity of not only deploying technologies in the field but also doing so in a scientifically rigorous manner can prove a substantial barrier for the effective use of conservation technologies, and clear...
11 October 2017
August 2025
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Louisa Richmond-Coggan
September 2025
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Louisa Richmond-Coggan
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Wildlife Drones
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Stephanie O'Donnell
17 Products
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| Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dear colleaguesWe study CH4 (and, CO, CO2) emissions from solid waste dumps in Brazil. We seek a low-cost and accurate sensor to make a... |
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Sensors, Latin America Community | 2 years 9 months ago | |
| Hi Everyone,We chose sigfox becuase it seems to have better range and is plug-play, whereas LoRa requires more custom programming and updating. Getting a gateway cost us $... |
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Animal Movement, Build Your Own Data Logger Community, Camera Traps, Connectivity, Emerging Tech, Sensors | 2 years 9 months ago | |
| here's an example of what I'm doing. |
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Sensors | 2 years 9 months ago | |
| Hi there Camilo, What an interesting project! If you are looking for a lower cost, but effective tools for acoustic monitoring you might want to look into two options: ... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Data management and processing tools, Sensors, Software Development, Latin America Community | 2 years 10 months ago | |
| Done lots of this over the years and it depends on the species really. If you want incubation behaviour and hence success or otherwise using temperature then the Thermocron... |
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Animal Movement, Sensors, Build Your Own Data Logger Community, Camera Traps | 2 years 10 months ago | |
| I don't think KEH would influence accelerometry at all.One other way to think about it is - the KEH is a movement sensor itself.The GPS is quite a severe factor in the energy... |
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Animal Movement, Emerging Tech, Sensors | 2 years 11 months ago | |
| Hello! I have 2 rescued sulcata tortoises in my care. I would like to put some kind of tracking device on them so I can find them if they... |
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Sensors | 3 years ago | |
| On the topic of potential sources for harvested power, and in the category of "out there"... I have spent some considerable (likely too much) time exploring harvesting... |
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Sensors | 3 years 1 month ago | |
| Hey all!I am Ayush, a core team member of my school's Robotics Club (Center For Innovation, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras). There... |
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Drones, Sensors, Wildlife Crime, Early Career | 3 years 1 month ago | |
| Dear Community,Together with Hackster.io, Seeed Studio is very happy to jointly organize “IoT Into the Wild Contest for Sustainable Plant... |
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AI for Conservation, Connectivity, Emerging Tech, Open Source Solutions, Sensors | 3 years 2 months ago | |
| What exact nutrients or parameters are you trying to measure? |
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Sensors | 3 years 2 months ago | |
| Iray PH35. like a DV . thermal camera. 640*328,35mm. could make videos. 2400 USD, china product, easy ship to Vietnam. 1km is the range to check monkeys... |
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Sensors | 3 years 4 months ago |
Interest in group order of ETag RFID readers
5 December 2019 8:05pm
How do I build bespoke conservation technology?
20 July 2020 12:00am
Training Opportunity: Durrell Conservation Academy
Durrell Conservation Academy
16 July 2020 12:00am
How do I repair my camera traps?
WILDLABS Team
13 July 2020 12:00am
Kākāpō Dreaming: A Wildlife Drones Adventure
8 July 2020 12:00am
Era of the Condor: A Species' Future in Recovery (Part 3)
2 July 2020 12:00am
Era of the Condor: A Species' Future in Recovery (Part 2)
25 June 2020 12:00am
Seeking research projects related to monitoring wildlife behavior
20 June 2020 3:34pm
22 June 2020 8:54pm
Hi Ben!
I think we've had correspondence on Twitter in the past, but can't remember for sure... Anyways, I'm a primatology PhD student and do fieldwork in Madagascar studying lemurs (specifically Ranomafana National Park). My dissertation is on lemur vocal communication, but I am doing an applied chapter focused on passive acoustic monitoring as well. I've tested out a bunch of different PAM devices (ARU's-autonomous recording units) e.g., SongMeter, Swift, AudioMoth and am currently annotating call files and prepping a training dataset that I hope to begin using with an ML model to identify species-specific calls. Vocals are a great use-case with behavior and tech as you can sometimes ID contexts, individuals, etc based on acoustic structure or usage which would be really cool (albeit very complicated) to incorporate.
Also have some experience with camera-traps, and the area I work in in Mada is part of the TEAM network so I'm hoping to incorporate camera-traps and ARUs in the same area. I work with local researchers and students (via the Malagasy-run Centre ValBio research station) and am looking to develop community-led initiatives as well so I've got the low-cost, open-source interest as well.
I'll stop typing an essay now, but definitely would love to chat!! Feel free to message me on Twitter or email me (cbatist@gradcenter.cuny.edu).
23 June 2020 1:56am
I'd love to chat more! I'll be reaching out soon!
From Autonomous Cars to Aqualink: Developing a Reef Monitoring System
9 June 2020 12:00am
Event: Arm’s AI Virtual Tech Sessions
Arm
9 June 2020 12:00am
Innovator Interview: Hack the Poacher
4 June 2020 12:00am
Webinar: The Next Generation Of Animal Telemetry
BOEM
1 June 2020 12:00am
Competition: 2020 Hackaday Prize
26 May 2020 12:00am
Grassroots Innovations for Wildlife Conservation
19 May 2020 12:00am
WILDLABS Tech Tutors: Season One
WILDLABS Team
19 May 2020 12:00am
12th International Forum on Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing
Chatham House
14 May 2020 12:00am
sound loop devise
26 April 2020 1:29pm
12 May 2020 4:07pm
I reckon if you could get down to a power consumption of 2-3Ah per day like our system had then a battery of 20Ah is suitable for a week and you wouldn't need inverters and solar panels etc. I agree that in your environment everything will struggle with being powered for 24hrs. I rarely have that problem to contend with! Will have a look at a temperature test of our design over the Summer and will share the details in a blog if it looks like it will prove a solution for all environments.
12 May 2020 7:14pm
Hi Eric, I think you could do away with an inverter, and instead use something like a DC-DC step-down (sometimes called a 'buck') converter. The solar and battery system is 12VDC correct? Chances are that the MP3 player wall charger is pumping out something like 5VDC (it should be written on the side of the plug)? Something like this would work: https://www.altronics.com.au/p/z6338-dc-dc-converter-module-3.5-35v-input-5-56v-output/
or if it is a 12V battery as I suspect, virtually any 'car' charger for a phone would do (just as I suspect the powerbank will). Hopefully, a large capacity powerbank is enough anyway, and you don't even need solar...
13 May 2020 12:39pm
Yes im hoping the power bank and a few extra mp3s will get it done this year. will look into a better system this winter now that I have some help:)
Era of the Condor: A Species' Future in Recovery
5 May 2020 12:00am
Notification systems for trap activation
10 January 2019 5:30am
4 May 2020 2:05am
Hi Rahid,
Thanks for your reply. In answer to your questions:
#1
There would be no external power (or cell phone reception) available at any of the node? The nodes would need to be completely autonomous.
#2
Total number of nodes would likley be in the range of 100–200 within a project area.
#3
The maximum distance between two nodes would likely be 5 km.
#4
All i want to transmit is an alert to say whether a trap has been activated or not. No video is required.
Many thanks,
Andrew
4 May 2020 3:00am
Ok, we can customize a solution for you, but probably won't be able to get this out to you for around 3-4 months.
RF and mesh is our domain. We can guarantee NLOS at well over 20 km+.
5KM in not a large distance. Not sure if LoRa can handle 200 nodes or work in the bush --- trees are the enemy of anything above 300 MHz.
I'm all for using HF (below 30MHz) or tactical VHF (30-108 MHz).
Would 1-1.6m antennas work?
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I can email you a case study for a much more complex project that we did last December .
We were able to transmit video using 100KHz of bandwidth over a frequency of 30.5 MHz. Our moving car was traveling at 130 km/h and achieved a 64km+ distance from the base station --- we used 50% less bandwidth to transmit video than what an FM radio station uses to transmit tunes and other meta data. Our glass to glass (camera lense to monitor) latency was 24ms.
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Our solutions don't require an expensive sattelite link or any phone network to work (although we can add those options).
What this means is that our radios will always work, come rain, come snow, et al. --- Satellite links are easily disrupted by a low cast / clouds , etc.
Our signals reflect and refract of the ground and the ionosphere to give you NLOS in any condition.
So a sensor based project of 200 nodes is no problem at all.
---
If waiting 3-4 months is not a big deal, then we can donate a few units to your project once we learn more about it.
---
4 May 2020 5:01am
Please see my edits above
Competition: iWildCam 2020
4 May 2020 12:00am
Mesh Powered Software Defined Radios
2 May 2020 7:13am
Call for Submissions – Arm Research Summit 2020
24 April 2020 12:00am
Talking Tracking with Xerius
23 April 2020 12:00am
#FieldKit50: Earth Day Giveaway
22 April 2020 12:00am
WILDLABS Tech Hub: WWF PandaSat
13 April 2020 12:00am
Locally-Brewed Conservation Technology from a Small Town in North Bengal
10 April 2020 12:00am
Connecting to MBARI's Deep-Sea Instruments
31 March 2020 12:00am
WILDLABS Community Call Recording: Rainforest X-PRIZE
30 March 2020 12:00am
Virtual Field Trip: Conservation Technology with Shah Selbe
24 March 2020 12:00am
Online Workshop: Conservation Technology
Hack the Poacher
23 March 2020 12:00am
23 July 2020 11:13am
Hi all,
Some ETAG rfid-readers are now avaible at https://www.labmaker.org/collections/earth-and-ecology/products/etag. The price is high, though: USD139.
Yvan