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
A Wildlife Biologist interested in Environment Assessment and Restoration, In-situ and Ex-situ strategies, Technologies used in Conservation and Illegal Wildlife Trade.
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Data Scientist
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I am a biology undergraduate student who is interested in the field of wildlife conservation and has skills in field observation and identification
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worked in wildlife conservation coms, now in live music production incl audio, curious about eco/bioacoustics.
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- @Marti09
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I'm a PhD student and my research focuses on analyzing patterns in mammals poaching occurrences.
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As a fresh electrical engineer, I am passionate about leveraging technology for biodiversity monitoring, logging, and poaching detection in tropical regions.
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My research focuses on using Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) to study endangered species, including carnivores, chiropterans (bats), and lizards, as well as their microbiomes.
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- @Sarah_Stoner
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Intelligence Lead @Go Insight. Intelligence professional, advocating for the use of intelligence and analysis to combat international wildlife trafficking.
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- @eleanorhorvath
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Water Daughter
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- @kristian.cuervo
- | He/Him
Applied Mathematics student in Denmark, interested in applications of mathematics to ecology and nature conservation. Currently interested in developing sensors for perimeter detection in wildlife conservations in Africa.
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- @valengsb
- | she / her
GIS specialist for Audubon Americas | Biologist with an emphasis on Conservation and Sustainable Development | Innovative approaches in the study and monitoring of biodiversity for possible, biodiverse, and just futures.
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Michigan State University
Conservation Criminologist
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Article
With the rising threats to biodiversity such as wildlife crime, climate change and human-wildlife conflict today, wildlife monitoring technologies have become vital to study movement ecology, behaviour patterns, changes...
25 October 2023
Article
Help Panama Fight Ecocide
Andrew Quitmeyer
There is an illegal mining contract (it's literally against the constitution of Panama!) Being forced upon the people and nature of panama by the Canadian mining company First Quantum and a handful of corrupt...
23 October 2023
Article
Video: WCS Uganda innovating Human-Wildlife Conflict solutions
Stephanie O'Donnell
The WCS team in Uganda is working with impacted communities, district leaders and wildlife authorities to come up with innovative solutions to Human Wildlife Conflicts and curb wildlife crimes in our time. Check out...
5 September 2023
Link
"Artificial Intelligence could be the solution needed to effectively monitor and safeguard vast landscapes across Africa that, up until now, have been protected solely by patrolling." Read Tusk's latest Medium blog on...
12 July 2023
Careers
Panthera’s Counter Wildlife Crime (CWC) program is one of five thematic, cross-regional programs that sit within its Conservation Science (CS) division. This role acts as a ‘force multiplier’ for the global experts,...
31 May 2023
Link
WWF's recent Fuller Seminar Series on Artificial Intelligence and Conservation featured some familiar faces from the WILDLABS community, including our past Tech Tutor Lily Xu! Check out her presentation talking about AI...
26 April 2023
Link
Anti-poaching tech vulnerable to cyber attacks, study finds | ITWeb
Stephanie O'Donnell
While tech deployment has often been hailed for playing a critical role in the fight against poaching, these technologies bring with them the risk of cyber attacks. This is based on a study conducted by Orange...
26 April 2023
Article
Mobilising East African nature restoration professionals
Matthew Creasey
Scholarships available for training courses focussing on nature restoration in East Africa
21 February 2023
Article
Researchers and conservationists are embarking on a bold initiative to save the world's most trafficked wild mammal — the pangolin
16 February 2023
Careers
Technology to End the Sixth Mass Extinction. Salary: $104k-144K; Location: Washington DC or Seattle WA, potential hybrid; 5+ years of Full stack development experience; Deadline March 15th - view post for full job...
10 February 2023
Link
This study uses passive acoustic monitoring to record the patterns of illegal cattle occurrence within protected areas in the Brazilian Pantanal.
12 January 2023
Careers
The Senior Conservation Technology Specialist will be responsible for providing technical advice and capacity development to GWP project teams on conservation technology, distilling challenges and lessons from project...
22 September 2022
June 2025
event
Nalini
July 2025
September 2024
42 Products
1 R&D Projects
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Recently updated products
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| Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Re:Wild and some of their partners have set up SMART (www.smartconservationtools.org) at several locations in the Caribbean, e.g.,and WCS has successfully implemented SMART-based... |
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Wildlife Crime, Conservation Tech Training and Education | 8 months 2 weeks ago | |
| Hi all,maybe it helps 😉 My free manual 'Drones in Biomonitoring' - https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8077113 can help to get (more) knowledge how to proceed easily and successfully... |
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Drones, Marine Conservation, Wildlife Crime | 9 months 1 week ago | |
| This is great!!!!! Thank you for sharing |
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Wildlife Crime | 10 months 1 week ago | |
| Hello guys,I'm looking into the topic of measuring species vulnerability to overharvesting of species in trade. I am exploring existing... |
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Ending Wildlife Trafficking Online, Marine Conservation, Wildlife Crime | 1 year ago | |
| I am interested in expanding our capability and understanding of snare detection by canines. We have two canines working in Asia that have successfully detected snares in training... |
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Wildlife Crime | 1 year 2 months ago | |
| Hi Scott, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts here! It would be great to learn more about this, would you be interested in finding a time to chat? Thanks! |
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Marine Conservation, Sustainable Fishing Challenges, Wildlife Crime | 1 year 2 months ago | |
| 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... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Animal Movement, Camera Traps, Citizen Science, Climate Change, Community Base, Connectivity, Drones, Emerging Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Open Source Solutions, Sensors, Software Development, Wildlife Crime, Funding and Finance | 1 year 3 months ago | |
| 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... |
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Community Base, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Data management and processing tools, Ethics of Conservation Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Open Source Solutions, Protected Area Management Tools, Sensors, Wildlife Crime | 1 year 4 months ago | |
| Hi folks! Happy 2024 and thanks in advance for your patience in case I over-used tags. If you’re using any form of natural language... |
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AI for Conservation, Citizen Science, Climate Change, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Data management and processing tools, Early Career, East Africa Community, Emerging Tech, Ending Wildlife Trafficking Online, Ethics of Conservation Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Open Source Solutions, Software Development, Wildlife Crime, Women in Conservation Tech Programme (WiCT) | 1 year 4 months ago | |
| 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... |
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Camera Traps, Climate Change, Community Base, Connectivity, Emerging Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Sensors, Wildlife Crime | 1 year 5 months ago | |
| Yes, I considered that one as well. At the time of this post (2016) the full masters wasn't available yet, only the online certificate courses. Unfortunately, both the masters and... |
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Wildlife Crime | 1 year 6 months ago | |
| greetings! i sent you a PM regarding this, feel free to contact me however is most convenient for you - regards,chris |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Climate Change, East Africa Community, Wildlife Crime | 2 years ago |
How do I get started with collecting mobile digital data to combat Illegal Wildlife Trade?
16 May 2023 11:59pm
[Recordings Now Available!) EarthRanger User Conference
27 April 2023 5:52am
Artificial Intelligence and Conservation with Lily Xu
26 April 2023 8:41pm
Anti-poaching tech vulnerable to cyber attacks, study finds | ITWeb
26 April 2023 2:48pm
Anti-poaching tech vulnerable to cyber attacks, study finds | ITWeb
An academic recommends comprehensive antivirus and regular software updates on anti-poaching tech, amid the risk of cyber attacks.
Congo Basin activity?
30 March 2023 9:14pm
Rhino horns in medicine
2 April 2023 2:22pm
How do I select an ivory sampling method to generate intelligence data?
15 March 2023 11:56am
Google Lens as a citizen's tool to report IWT
24 February 2023 9:30am
Mobilising East African nature restoration professionals
21 February 2023 3:57pm
Operation Pangolin launches to save world's most trafficked wild mammal
16 February 2023 7:51pm
17 February 2023 1:50am
Hiring Full Stack Developer at Conservation X Labs
10 February 2023 5:35pm
New Paper - The sound of the illegal: Applying bioacoustics for long-term monitoring of illegal cattle in protected areas
12 January 2023 5:20pm
Frontiers Symposium: Digital tools for reversing environmental degradation
5 October 2022 10:23am
Senior Conservation Technology Expert Position (Consultancy) with the Global Wildlife Program
22 September 2022 5:35pm
Survey for Doctoral Research on Poaching in Protected Areas
29 August 2022 10:43pm
Ceres Wild Rhino application
22 August 2022 1:29am
29 September 2022 4:05am
CERES TAG
22 July 2022 3:36am
A Triphibian Surveillance Vehicle
9 July 2022 2:23pm
Hello there
1 July 2022 5:00pm
Program Coordinator - Learning and Leadership for Conservation (LLC)
23 June 2022 2:45pm
New wildlife forensics lab - Singapore
29 May 2022 12:34pm
Solar-powered anti-poaching motorbikes
15 February 2021 12:55pm
5 October 2021 5:05am
Electric motorcycles definitely have advantages in the bush, and I would like to see more of that! Apart from the advantages mentioned by that site, the low speed torque and clutchless nature of electric drives make it a natural for rough terrain.
The bikes you linked to show their purebred sports/competition pedigree. Workhorse motorcycles for the rough look very different, for instance the German and Russian sidecar bikes of WW2, and the scooters used in farms today in SE Asia (especially Vietnam) often tow trailers or have sidecars and they handle offroad conditions well enough. Interdiction in flagrante delecti is where speed and agility are paramount, but I don't know how often that occurs, or if it is desireable.
They sure do look like fun though.
11 October 2021 11:17am
That an additional tool but I imagine that it will be only efficient in open terrain and mostly in southern African rainforest protected area. Not sure that it will be a game changer but might bring new ideas, let see how it goes.
2 April 2022 12:14pm
Thanks for the sharing the information. In India as well solar-powered e-bike for forest guards was piloted (See https://www.thebetterindia.com/267799/nit-karnataka-electric-bike-forest-surveillance-kudremukh-battery-range-specs/). It seems like a good technology but it has to be tested widely on different forest terrains...
Issues in CITES wildlife enforcement information sharing
2 April 2022 10:42am
Survey for Doctoral Research on Poaching in Protected Areas
11 March 2022 8:05pm
26 March 2022 10:57am
I tried to fill it out but it's not letting me finish because all the questions are set to be required? Some of them are not relevant or the info is unknown to me, but not all the questions have this as an answer option. Just something to consider FYI
28 March 2022 7:14pm
Hello. I have reviewed the questions this am and all the questions on the survey that force a response should have a N/A or "I don't know" option. That said, there are still some bugs that I have found with the survey. Please email me at wlz101@psu.edu if you encounter any more issues and I will be happy to address them promptly. Thank you very much for taking the time to complete the survey.
Wendy
Anti-poaching CCTV and boat sensor
21 February 2022 2:02am
5 March 2022 6:06am
Hi,
I've been working on a buoy-mounted underwater acoustic recorder, kinda like what you're talking about. I'll send you a concept note.
-harold
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25 April 2023 5:08pm
greetings!
i sent you a PM regarding this, feel free to contact me however is most convenient for you -
regards,
chris