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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2023 Bachelor Degree Graduate from the College of African Wildlife Management, Mweka.
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Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)
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- @muganyizi
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Muganyizi Melchior Kamuganga is a Tanzanian youth passionate about creating positive social changes. He is a professional Wildlife manager and passionate beekeeper. He is a member of the Lightup impact community in east Africa, Masterpeace global network, Metis and Ashoka alumni
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- @Bistra_Dilkina
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Assoc. Prof. of Computer Science at USC and co-director of USC Center for AI in Society. Integration of machine learning and optimization, decision making, conservation planning, wildlife corridors, climate impacts, disaster resilience, wildlife trafficking.
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Tech for Conservation
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Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)
I am a devoted conservationist, natural resource management enthusiast interested in Elephant and Pangolin species and passionate about linking communities with environmental conservation
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Technologist and Visual storyteller focusing on social, conservations issues.
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Interested in bioacoustics
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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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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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Article
SMART is excited to showcase the features of their new data collection solution, SMART Mobile! Built around the specific needs of the SMART user community, this streamlined mobile tool allows staff in protected areas to...
23 June 2020
Article
Innovator Interview: Hack the Poacher
WILDLABS Team
Conservation technology largely consists of two categories: tools to monitor and study wildlife and their habitats, and solutions to mitigate or prevent negative human impacts. The fight against poaching in particular...
4 June 2020
Article
WILDLABS Tech Hub: WWF PandaSat
WILDLABS Team
At the 2018 London Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference, we announced the WILDLABS Tech Hub, an accelerator programme created to support the development and scaling of groundbreaking technological solutions addressing the ...
13 April 2020
Article
WILDLABS Tech Hub: Poreprint
WILDLABS Team
At the 2018 London Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference, we announced the WILDLABS Tech Hub, an accelerator program created to support the development and scaling of groundbreaking technological solutions addressing the ...
26 March 2020
The Esri Conservation Program is now accepting applications for grant assistance to access its ArcGIS Solutions for Protected Area Management Application. This system provides access to a suite of both mobile and web...
4 March 2020
Funding
The 2020 Tusk Awards are now accepting nominations of outstanding individuals who have made a significant impact on conservation in Africa. These nominations offer the rare and exciting opportunity to honor your peers...
3 March 2020
Article
Instant Detect 2.0 emerges
Sam Seccombe
In the past six months Instant Detect 2.0 has physically emerged, with the first prototype systems built and ready for testing at the start of April. The ZSL team is now well into their optimisation and hardening phase...
3 September 2019
Funding
ESA Kickstarter: Environmental Crimes
European Space Agency (ESA)
The European Space Agency’s “Environmental Crimes” thematic call offers support and funding of up to €60,000 per activity to companies looking to develop services tackling illegal water, air and land polution using...
22 August 2019
Article
The WILDLABS TECH HUB is supporting technology solutions tackling the illegal wildlife trade, in collaboration with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Digital Catapult, Satellite Applications Catapult, Amazon Web...
4 June 2019
Funding
AI for Earth Innovation Grant (extended)
Microsoft
To further their missions, LDF and Microsoft are collaborating on the AI for Earth innovation grant to support applicants in creating and deploying open source machine learning models, algorithms, and data sets that...
4 June 2019
Article
Caught in the crossfire – Tapirs in tiger territory
WILDLABS Team
It is common knowledge that the illegal trade in tiger bones and body parts poses a grave threat to the remaining populations of Asia’s most iconic big cat. But this grisly business also has a detrimental impact on...
31 May 2019
Article
Technology lab focused on wildlife protection opens on Ol Pejeta Conservancy
Ol Pejeta Conservancy
Ol Pejeta Conservancy partners with conservation and technology organisations to kick-start a research and innovation centre for wildlife conservation
31 May 2019
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| Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hi Robynne - I'm really glad you're interested. I'm running a cohort at the moment but have so far only covered some QGIS basics so you would be welcome to jump on from next... |
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Wildlife Crime | 1 week 2 days ago | |
| I create ocean exploration and marine life content on YouTube, whether it be recording nautilus on BRUVs, swimming with endangered bowmouth... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Animal Movement, Camera Traps, Citizen Science, Drones, Emerging Tech, Marine Conservation, Sensors, Sustainable Fishing Challenges, Wildlife Crime | 1 month 2 weeks ago | |
| Hi WILDLABS Community! I have started mapping the project for the Gulf of America Dead Zone and here are some photos of the progress. In the last picture, I have... |
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Climate Change, Marine Conservation, Wildlife Crime | 1 month 3 weeks ago | |
| Thank you for your reply, ChadI meant 10 as a whole, indeed. Perhaps you see your post in one group, but since it is tagged for all groups, I assumed you meant 10 in total.In your... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Animal Movement, Camera Traps, Citizen Science, Climate Change, Community Base, Connectivity, Drones, eDNA & Genomics, Emerging Tech, Funding and Finance, Geospatial, Human-Wildlife Coexistence, Software Development, Wildlife Crime | 1 month 3 weeks ago | |
| HiThis is great! So just to double check - there is no way to join online? I would love to be part of this conference. Thanks, Els van Lavieren |
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Community Base, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Data management and processing tools, Emerging Tech, Human-Wildlife Coexistence, Protected Area Management Tools, Wildlife Crime | 2 months 2 weeks ago | |
| Hi @iainmcnicol , welcome to WILDLABS! Thanks for posting this on here. I have shared with my colleagues at Fauna & Flora who have some experience (especially with the... |
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Community Base, Geospatial, Protected Area Management Tools, Wildlife Crime | 4 months ago | |
| Hi Georg,Oh, that's a pity. But thanks anyway for checking!Really appreciate it!CheersMartina |
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Wildlife Crime | 3 months ago | |
| Hi Adam! Sounds like you have your work cut out for you. I have not used radar systems or AI systems for this sort of detection, but there are methods using change detection... |
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AI for Conservation, Drones, Wildlife Crime | 3 months 3 weeks ago | |
| Great dear Travis,This is a great news and an opportunity to me and my local bee keepers. It really sounds very helpful.Here is my contacts:Email: muganyizi@pales.or.tz ... |
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Climate Change, Conservation Tech Training and Education, East Africa Community, Funding and Finance, Human-Wildlife Coexistence, Wildlife Crime | 4 months 1 week ago | |
| You can also check out WWF's newly launched C2C: Conflict to Coexistence approach. It provides a framework and methodology for developing tailor-made human-wildlife conflict (HWC... |
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Wildlife Crime | 6 months ago | |
| Not a book, but a very real documentary:Stroop - Journey into the Rhino Horn War |
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Wildlife Crime | 6 months 1 week ago | |
| Thank you so much for sharing! They seem to only state the official DFFE statistics nowadays. From my connections in SouthAfrica these numbers don't always seem to reflect... |
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Wildlife Crime | 6 months 1 week ago |
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
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
Download Now: The Technical Difficulties Editorial Series
19 January 2022 12:00am
Tech Companies Block More than 11.6 Million Transactions for Endangered Wildlife Online
6 December 2021 12:00am
Technical Difficulties: The Death of Giants
3 November 2021 12:00am
Technical Difficulties: Expect the Unexpected
Eric Becker
and 1 more
27 October 2021 12:00am
Technical Difficulties: Cleared for Takeoff
Eric Becker
and 1 more
20 October 2021 12:00am
Technical Difficulties: Understanding the Realities
Eric Becker
and 1 more
13 October 2021 12:00am
NParks opens Singapore’s first Centre for Wildlife Forensics
20 September 2021 12:00am
Tech Tutors: How do I use AI to fight wildlife crime?
1 September 2021 10:59pm
Looking for - Intelligence Database Software
14 June 2021 11:01am
22 June 2021 1:48am
Hi Phil,
Thank you very much! I had not considered them but they are a viable option for sure! The biggest concern would be the security of storing sensitive information online via AWS (or alternative) but lets see if there is a solution.
I'll dig around and come back to you on it! Have a great day
8 July 2021 8:31am
Hi Dexter
We have a bunch of tools for you guys at Natual-solutions.eu ...
Ave a look at https://geonature.fr/ its alll open source, we can translate it all for you if needed ...
Please fell free to email us at
contact@natural-solutions.eu
9 July 2021 12:56am
Thank you very much! I'll email you now.
Announcing the 2021 CLP Team Award Winners
17 May 2021 12:00am
It Takes a #Tech4Wildlife Community
17 May 2021 12:00am
Getting Started with Conservation Dogs: An Interview with Paul Bunker
Ellie Warren
and 1 more
7 May 2021 12:00am
Ecognize: A platform for environmental and conservation issue reporting
8 April 2021 11:47pm
16 April 2021 10:52pm
Update (April 16): I just open-sourced the code at https://github.com/ecognize-hub/ecognize. I released it under the Apache 2.0 license so it can be used for pretty much anything, including commercial use.
Webinar: 'Advances in use of SMART approach, tools and technology'
The SMART Partnership
12 March 2021 12:00am
How do I strategically allocate drones for conservation?
WILDLABS Team
8 February 2021 12:00am
Protecting Wildlife with Machine Learning
29 January 2021 12:00am
New Paper: Empowering Rangers Through Technology and Innovation
27 January 2021 12:00am
Survey for Wildlife Conservation: Do We Need Hand of Technology?
27 December 2020 3:35pm
How do I use open access remote sensing data to monitor fishing?
WILDLABS Team
24 November 2020 12:00am
Webinar: Getting Started With SMART
The SMART Partnership
11 November 2020 12:00am
Hackathon Opportunity: Vaquita Hacks
10 November 2020 12:00am
[Webinar series] Wildlife Crime is Financial Crime: A collaborative approach in the fight against wildlife crime
15 October 2020 10:16am
Designing a Camera Mount with FLIR and WWF
24 August 2020 12:00am
WWF US Conservation Leadership Award
13 August 2020 12:00am
Challenge: ElephantEdge
11 August 2020 12:00am
Metal Detecting Sensors for Anti-Poaching
10 August 2020 12:00am
Recognising illegally-traded animal body parts
18 June 2020 7:32pm
31 July 2020 2:30pm
Hi Sara and Debbie,
Just wanted to chime in here since I actually worked on this exact project several years ago when I was an intern at WWF.
We used scans from a near infrared spectrometer to classify ivory. The model was able to distinguish between fake and real ivory, including even distinguishing between elephant ivory and mammoth ivory. My manager for the internship, Rachel Kramer, had done all the hard work of collecting hundreds of scans of ivory samples from various museum collections and ivory that had been seized.
I am happy to share more details about the project if you are interested. Unfortunately I did not get to see it through because I was only working there for one summer three years ago, but I now work as a data scientist and so I have a lot more experience with this type of modeling.
31 July 2020 3:04pm
Very cool! It makes total sense to use a more informative sensor like a spectrometer for this. I'm not surprised to hear that WWF was interested! Do you know if the model you trained is being used anywhere?
31 July 2020 5:28pm
I am really curious! I will ask my old manager and get back to you.
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