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
- @JakobWiren
- | He,him
Swedish soon-to-be graduate engineer in AI/ML and robotics. Writing my master thesis in using decision trees for anti-poaching in Limpopo, South Africa. Am passionate about conservation, AI and travelling. Help me find a way to help you!
- 0 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 13 Groups
- @Freaklabs
- | He/Him
Freaklabs
I'm an engineer and product designer working on wildlife conservation technology.
- 0 Resources
- 302 Discussions
- 20 Groups
Ol Pejeta Conservancy
Endeavoring to implement tech solutions for conservation.
- 0 Resources
- 18 Discussions
- 11 Groups
Liverpool John Moores University
Sensors, remote sensing, embedded systems, Drones
- 0 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 7 Groups
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- 9 Groups
- @jmasseloux
- | She/Her
Programme Coordinator and M&E Specialist at ZSL Thailand
- 0 Resources
- 3 Discussions
- 2 Groups
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 10 Groups
- @Laila
- | she
I am a biologist specialized in animal behavior and welfare, with extensive experience in project management related to conservation and wildlife protection. My work focuses on research and implementing strategies to prevent species trafficking, enhance transnational cooperation,
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 1 Groups
- @TMaroulis
- | He
Farmer/Engineer looking to apply technology to the rangelands
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 3 Groups
Data Scientist/AI Engineer, Birdwatcher, Trail Runner: here to learn about conservation tech & contribute where I can.
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 11 Groups
An electrical engineer creating scalable tech for conservation.
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 3 Groups
- @Aurel
- | She/Her
Looking to reconcile biodiversity conservation and finance.
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 10 Groups
Article
When Victoria Espinel, President and CEO of BSA | The Software Alliance, spoke at the WWF Fuller Symposium, she took us on a whistle-stop tour of case studies where software and data are transforming our understanding...
10 March 2016
Article
Bringing Conservation Technology to Life
Shah Selbe
We are living in the midst of a pretty exciting era. Never before has humanity been more educated, more connected, more enabled, or more empowered than we are today. There are many reasons to be optimistic about the...
17 February 2016
Article
Report outlines 2016's most pressing conservation issues
Olivia Bailey
New horizon scanning report published this month identifies 15 emerging threats and opportunities for global biodiversity.
3 February 2016
Article
Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge: Winners Announced!
WILDLABS Admin
From artificial “sniffer” technologies to portable DNA sequencers, the Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge received hundreds of innovative ideas to help stamp out wildlife crime. Now, the Challenge is proud to announce 16...
22 January 2016
Article
The Impact of the Internet of Things
WILDLABS Admin
Gary Atkinson, Director of Emerging Technologies at ARM, explains why we should be interested in the Internet of Things. Could it be a game changer for conservation?
10 December 2015
Article
Gaming for Good: Minecraft and Quiz Up
Peter Jacobs
Can games have real world impacts on issues like the illegal wildlife trade? In part two of his case study for the Gaming for Conservation Group, Peter Jacobs discusses United for Wildlife's efforts to engage young...
3 December 2015
Article
Harnessing Big Data to Combat Illegal Wildlife, Timber and Fisheries Trade
Rachel Kramer and 2 more
The 2015 Fuller Symposium brought together thought leaders in science, policy, business, conservation and development to tackle emerging issues facing our planet. This framing piece was developed to support a Fuller...
26 November 2015
Article
Technology for Traceability
Daniel Brizuela and 1 more
Traceability (knowing where products come from and how they are made) is a foundational pre-cursor for many sustainability interventions. While many tools have been developed to offer high-level insight about the...
26 November 2015
Article
Gaming for Good: Runescape and Angry Birds
Peter Jacobs
Can games raise awareness of conservation issues like the illegal wildlife trade? In part one of his case study for the Gaming for Conservation Group, Peter Jacobs discusses how United for Wildlife is partnering with...
25 November 2015
Article
What is eDNA?
Sarah Kuppert
Environmental DNA (eDNA) is nuclear or mitochondrial DNA that is released from an organism into the environment. Sources of eDNA include secreted faeces, mucous, gametes, shed skin, hair and carcasses. In this article,...
2 November 2015
June 2025
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Wildlife Drones
42 Products
1 R&D Projects
41 Organisations
Recently updated products
Recently updated R&D Projects
Recently updated organisations
| Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dear Members of Wildlife Crime Group, Greetings from India! Hope you are well and taking good care of yourself. :-) ... |
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Wildlife Crime | 4 years 4 months ago | |
| A panel of 25 speakers from multiple disciplines will offer collective insight and highlight why there is a need to look through numerous... |
|
Wildlife Crime | 4 years 7 months ago | |
| I am really curious! I will ask my old manager and get back to you. |
|
Wildlife Crime | 4 years 9 months ago | |
| Hi Wildlife Crime comm, Just wanted to share this really interesting conversation happening over in the FIT group: Thinking Outside... |
|
Wildlife Crime | 4 years 10 months ago | |
| Hi Richard, I've been working with Kerinci Seblat National Park in Sumatra for the better part of 20 years focusing primarily to countering tiger and other wildlife... |
|
Wildlife Crime | 4 years 11 months ago | |
| The Global Wildlife Program (GWP) is a partnership on Wildlife Conservation and Crime Prevention for Sustainable Development led by the... |
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Wildlife Crime | 4 years 11 months ago | |
| I am writing a series of articles for Utrecht University (NL) about how synthetic biology, cloning, genetic modification and habitat... |
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Wildlife Crime | 5 years 2 months ago | |
| The ASC conference happens annually, the next one will be in Washington DC over the 18-21 November 2020. Details for the pre-conference workshops are only e-mailed a few... |
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Wildlife Crime | 5 years 6 months ago | |
| Hi All, I am a natural history producer and I am looking for current lion relocation projects. If anyone knows of anyone working... |
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Wildlife Crime | 5 years 7 months ago | |
| Hi Liev, I'm not an expert on this stuff, but from the sound of it, your answer will depend on what you're looking to focus on. By 'illegal', do you mean... |
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Wildlife Crime | 5 years 9 months ago | |
| Hey everyone, Thanks for your interest in our virtual meetup special, Scaling technology solutions to tackle the illegal wildlife trade... |
|
Wildlife Crime | 5 years 11 months ago | |
| Thanks for the wonderful answer to Nik's query, Joachim! I think you covered everything, but to put a cap on it: for our good to make a long term impact, it has to survive the... |
|
Wildlife Crime | 6 years 3 months ago |
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
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.
FIT Identification - Possibilities for use as an anti-poaching tool?
13 July 2020 10:43pm
Tech4Wildlife News: SMART Mobile
23 June 2020 12:00am
We want to provide tracking and surveillance tech FOC to catch poachers.
14 October 2019 3:22pm
14 October 2019 11:57pm
I RUN THE GLOBAL WILDLIFE WARRIORS NETWORK COMPRISED OF 30 ONLINE LOCATIONS IN 30 COUNTRIES WITH A LARGE TEAM OF ADMINISTRATORS. WE ALSO HAVE ADMINS THAT ARE ANTI-POACHING RANGERS IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF AFRICA. LAST YEAR GWW REACHED OVER 5,000,000 PEOPLE. THAT IS ALWAYS GWW'S MAIN GOAL, OUTREACH! AS WE BELIEVE THAT THIS WAR TO PROTECT WILDLIFE WILL BE WON ONCE THE CREED OF CONSERVATION REACHES CRITICAL MASS GLOBALLY
21 April 2020 11:11am
Hello MH, can we get into contact what edge devices (camera traps, CCTV or other sensing) you might have? we are working on the frontline of technology as a force mutliplier for ant-poaching units mostly in southern africa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOWW0LwKc0g
thank you and regards
Wolf
17 June 2020 3:55pm
Hi Richard, I've been working with Kerinci Seblat National Park in Sumatra for the better part of 20 years focusing primarily to countering tiger and other wildlife poaching and IWT in/around one of the largest national parks in Asia, might be good to talk, at very least you would have a better idea of some of the issues our ranger teams face.
Innovator Interview: Hack the Poacher
4 June 2020 12:00am
World Bank Conservation Tech Survey
3 June 2020 2:46pm
WILDLABS Tech Hub: WWF PandaSat
13 April 2020 12:00am
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