Wildlife crime is one of the greatest challenges facing conservation, and one of the conservation tech world's biggest areas of innovation. With new ideas and solutions constantly being put forth to track and protect species targeted by poachers, manage protected areas and support rangers, and combat the growing online market for illegal wildlife products, the engineers and conservationists working to solve wildlife crime's many challenges rely on tools like machine learning, biologging, camera traps, acoustic monitoring, drones, mobile apps, and more.
This wide variety of overlapping technology makes our Wildlife Crime group a potential melting pot for many of our other communities, and makes it an especially exciting place to find collaborators working in different tech spheres to meet a common goal. Whether you're a camera trap expert looking for information on thermal vision to spot potential poachers, a machine learning expert with the skills to analyze acoustic data for gunshots, or a protected area manager seeking the latest integrated mobile tools, this group can connect you with the right members of our community!
Below, you'll find WILDLABS resources and conversations to help you understand how different technologies are being put to work in the fight against wildlife crime, and what conservation tech practitioners need for these tools to be effective.
Three Tutorials and Videos for Beginners:
- How do I use AI to fight wildlife crime? | Lily Xu, Tech Tutors
- WWF Wildlife Crime Technology Project | Eric Becker, Virtual Meetups
- SmartParks | Laurens de Groot, Virtual Meetups
Three Forum Threads for Beginners:
- Snare detection technologies | Rachel Kramer
- Tools for conservation management | Chris Muashekele
- Looking for Intelligence Database Software | Dexter Oelrichs
Three Articles for Beginners:
- Using AIS data to investigate the world's fishing ports, Max Schofield
- How do Wildlife Crime Experts view Remote Sensing Technologies used to Combat Illegal Wildlife Crime?, Isla Duporge
- Metal Detecting Sensors for Anti-Poaching, Sam Seccombe
Join this group now to get to know our community and start discussing solutions and ideas together!
Header photo: © Frank af Petersens/Save the Elephants
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I am a forensic geneticist with a long term interest in developing and applying DNA markers to combat wildlife crime. Currently developing and validating STRs for raptors and rapid on-site species ID using the ONT MinION portable sequencer.
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- @Gody
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Godfrey Nyangaresi, a dedicated Protection Manager with 12+ years of wildlife conservation experience. Skilled in technologies, administration, and law enforcement, he leads protection efforts at STEP, ensuring the sustainable conservation of elephants in southern Tanzania.
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- @RHugtenburg
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Student at Aberystwyth University. Bug Fanatic🪲. Worked at Octophin Digital for my industrial year placement 🐙.
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- @kadambarid
- | she, her, hers
Dr. Kadambari Devarajan is an engineer-turned-ecologist working on biodiversity monitoring. (Website - http://kadambarid.in/)
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- @samarmstrong
- | She/her
International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
Invasive species/law enforcement/project management/Asia/Australia
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- 4 Groups
- @brittanypalmer
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Entrepreneur and environmental attorney with a passion for wildlife conservation.
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Entrepreneur building AI-driven acoustic monitoring technology for comprehensive wildlife conservation, protection and ecosystem health monitoring.
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- 4 Groups
University of Madras
Research Coordinator
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Forgotten Parks Foundation
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Article
Technical Difficulties: Understanding the Realities
Eric Becker and 1 more
In their three-part interview from our new series Technical Difficulties, Colby Loucks and Eric Becker share the failures they've encountered and learned from throughout six years of working on the WWF-US Wildlife Crime...
13 October 2021
Article
NParks opens Singapore’s first Centre for Wildlife Forensics
Singapore National Parks Board (NParks)
Singapore's National Parks Board (NParks) has now opened the country's first Centre for Wildlife Forensics (CWF), and launched a new K9 unit to help uncover illegal wildlife and wildlife products at Singapore’s borders...
20 September 2021
Article
Announcing the 2021 CLP Team Award Winners
Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP)
Our friends at the Conservation Leadership Programme are proud to announce their 2021 CLP Team Award recipients! We'll be featuring interviews with some CLP winners about their projects, the technology they're using,...
17 May 2021
Article
It Takes a #Tech4Wildlife Community
Ellie Warren
Check out WILDLABS' feature about the importance of building a community in the conservation technology world, shared on the IUCN World Conservation Congress blog to celebrate their upcoming event. Read an excerpt by...
17 May 2021
Article
Getting Started with Conservation Dogs: An Interview with Paul Bunker
Ellie Warren and 1 more
Today we're talking to Paul Bunker, owner of Chiron K9, a canine consultancy company specializing in detection, author of the workbook Imprint Your Detection Dog in 15 Days, a resource aimed at providing tools to get...
7 May 2021
Article
Protecting Wildlife with Machine Learning
Ellie Warren
Last year, Tim van Deursen and Thijs Suijten shared their new "Hack the Poacher" system with us, presenting a unique way to detect poachers in real-time within protected national parks. Read on to learn about their...
29 January 2021
Article
This month, WILDLABS member Drew Cronin shared the new paper "Empowering rangers through technology and innovation." This collaborative effort included several members of the WILDLABS community and leadership, and...
27 January 2021
Article
Hackathon Opportunity: Vaquita Hacks
WILDLABS Team
Do you have innovative #tech4wildlife ideas that could save one of the most endangered species on earth from extinction? Apply now to join Vaquita Hack, a hackathon for students and early career conservationists! This...
10 November 2020
Article
Today, WWF conservation engineering intern Ashley Rosen shares insight into the process of redesigning a camera mount for FLIR thermal cameras used by rangers in the fight against poaching. Ashley's design will become a...
24 August 2020
Funding
WWF US Conservation Leadership Award
World Wide Fund for Nature/ World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
Applications are now open for the the WWF-US Conservation Leadership Award, a prize honoring exceptional young people working toward conservation solutions in the United States. If you are an early career...
13 August 2020
Funding
Challenge: ElephantEdge
Smart Parks
Protecting elephants from conservation's most pressing issues like poaching and human-wildlife conflict requires big, bold, and innovative solutions. Hackster.io, Smart Parks, Edge Impulse, Microsoft, and several other...
11 August 2020
Article
Metal Detecting Sensors for Anti-Poaching
Sam Seccombe
Since 2016, ZSL’s Instant Detect team have been working on improving metal detecting sensors for anti-poaching. The team believe that using metal detecting sensors will provide a highly targeted detection of potential...
10 August 2020
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| Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Just to clarify, you mean illegal owners of exotic animals or legal owners? I'm assuming illegal because you reference wildlife crime, but in a lot of countries there are... |
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Wildlife Crime | 8 years 3 months ago | |
| Post-doctoral Researcher or PhD student with a background in data/computer science to work with me on issues around illegal... |
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Wildlife Crime | 8 years 3 months ago | |
| Thanks, @Drue+Freeman . You raise excellent points, here. In my experience with projects that use protected area monitoring and management software such as the... |
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Wildlife Crime | 8 years 4 months ago | |
| Hello - I wrote up a lessons learned from the Hack for Wildlife that we ran in Chicago. https://medium.com/@mygshah/i-just-ran-my-first-hackathon-you-can-too-... |
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Wildlife Crime | 8 years 5 months ago | |
| Hi Isla, The 3 threats are all situational and location dependent. For example, in South Africa there is a very well established muti industry and huge muti markets in KwaZulu... |
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Wildlife Crime | 8 years 6 months ago | |
| Wildlife Crime group, A set of Training Guidelines for Anti Poaching Field Rangers were launched... |
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Wildlife Crime | 8 years 6 months ago | |
| Hi everyone, Isla has shared the results of this survey in a new article in our Resources area. You can read her full analysis of the survey results here: https... |
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Wildlife Crime | 8 years 9 months ago | |
| That paper is available on Sci Hub. |
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Wildlife Crime | 9 years ago | |
| I just saw this article about embedding GPS trackers in fake turtle eggs. It reminded me of the Nat Geo story from last year where they did... |
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Wildlife Crime | 9 years ago | |
| It sounds like @David+Baisch at Conservation X Labs just ordered a SCiO spec and developer's kit to test its sensitivity. They're interested in ... |
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Wildlife Crime | 9 years ago | |
| Hello all, A new rhino poaching report is out by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. ... |
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Wildlife Crime | 9 years 1 month ago | |
| Here's a few apps relevant to combatting wildlife crime. 1. ENV- Report Wildlife Crime - This app specifically focuses on... |
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Wildlife Crime | 9 years 4 months ago |
