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 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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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
The Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART)
WILDLABS Team
SMART combines a ranger-based data collection tool with capacity building and a suite of best practices aimed at helping protected area and wildlife managers better monitor, evaluate and adaptively manage their...
15 March 2016
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
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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... |
|
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... |
|
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-... |
|
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... |
|
Wildlife Crime | 8 years 6 months ago | |
| Wildlife Crime group, A set of Training Guidelines for Anti Poaching Field Rangers were launched... |
|
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. |
|
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... |
|
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 ... |
|
Wildlife Crime | 9 years ago | |
| Hello all, A new rhino poaching report is out by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. ... |
|
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... |
|
Wildlife Crime | 9 years 4 months 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