Hello everyone – long time lurker, first time poster...
I’m the founder of a recently funded tech startup working on an exciting venture that bridges consumer technology and wildlife conservation. We’re developing user-friendly devices that collect wildlife data. While our main goal is to create an engaging experience for users, we genuinely believe the data we gather could make a meaningful contribution to conservation efforts and research.
We’re currently in the early stages of developing our data strategy and are keen to ensure that we get it right from the beginning. We want to make sure our data is valuable, ethically managed, and effectively utilised by the conservation community.
I'm looking to find experts or advisors who specialise in conservation data strategy, who can help advise, shape, and guide us to build the most useful thing for nature.
Some of the topics we're looking for guidance on:
Valuable Data Types and Metadata
- What types of data and metadata are most beneficial for conservation purposes?
- Are there specific data standards or protocols we should adhere to?
Data Standardization and Integration
- How can we best align our data formats with existing conservation databases?
- What best practices exist for facilitating data integration and interoperability?
Ethical Guidelines
- What ethical considerations should we be mindful of when collecting and sharing wildlife data?
- How can we protect sensitive species and habitats from potential risks associated with data sharing?
Data Validation
- What processes are effective in ensuring accurate species identification?
- Have community verification or expert reviews been beneficial in your projects?
If you know of individuals or organizations that might be interested, or if you have suggestions on where else we should look, we’d greatly appreciate your guidance. This space is new to me, and so I'm not even sure if what I'm asking for is a thing!
Thanks,
Pete.
21 November 2024 8:25pm
I recently started looking at data standards - initially for camera trap related data - and found that this is a fairly uncoordinated area open for standardization and simplification to make it more usable and understandable for citizen scientists (since "formal" scientists mostly have their own organizational/institutional standards to comply with).
You might be aware of all or most of these and it might not be what you're looking for, but I found the following online sources useful:
- Camera trap data:
- Camtrap DP - Data exchange format for camera trap data: seems to be the most recent and widest adopted option https://camtrap-dp.tdwg.org and https://doi.org/10.1002/rse2.374
- GBIF's Best Practices for Managing and Publishing Camera Trap Data: my practical application go-to manual: https://docs.gbif.org/camera-trap-guide/en/. Also look at this related older guide for a slightly different approach: https://www.gbif.org/document/1o6HNHuCxKaiAC8yG86gQq/publishing-camera-trap-data-a-best-practice-guide
- Wildlife Insights' collection on mostly camera trap related standards: https://www.wildlifeinsights.org/standards
- Other camera trap examples:
- Everything I know about ML and camera traps - basically anything that @dmorris writes is beneficial - he's also active here on Wildlabs.net
- https://timelapse.ucalgary.ca/ - Saul Greenberg's Timelapse software site, but a lot of info on how "normal" people can contribute to camera trap efforts as citizen scientists without being dedicated professionals
- WildTrax Data Integration Report for the Regional Industrial Caribou Collaboration (RICC): Remote Camera Survey Guidelines & Metadata Standards
- Remote Camera Survey Guidelines & AB Metadata Standards — Remote Camera Survey Guidelines - Guidelines for Western Canada
- WildCAM Protocols
- A review of camera trapping for conservation behaviour research - Caravaggi - 2017 - Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation - Wiley Online Library
- Various conservation-related standards:
- GBIF Data standards that also refers to TDWG - Biodiversity Information Standards
- A standardisation framework for bio‐logging data to advance ecological research and conservation - Sequeira - 2021 - Methods in Ecology and Evolution - Wiley Online Library
- Metadata use in research data management - Wiley - 2014 - Bulletin of the Association for Information Science and Technology - Wiley Online Library
- Conservation Standards (CS)
- Geospatial data standards:
And there's probably a million other useful pieces of info out there that I haven't found yet...
21 November 2024 8:39pm
You might also want to contact Earthranger, Smart Parks, and even AfricanParks specialists to discuss how they handle data as part of their activities. And the iNaturalist forums have some interesting discussions...
22 November 2024 8:04am
Hey Pete!
Fellow founder here. Up until Summer, we were creating our own wildlife camera (called it Animal Detect as well). Some of the considerations you've listed resonate with our experience.
@HeinrichS already dropped some really good suggestions.
From what is not mentioned I can add that if one plans to operate within Europe, then one must take care of GDPR regulations. It is mostly a gray-zone definitions, but generally: don't detect/record humans on public territories, do not reveal locations of cameras or detected animals (to avoid poachers tracking rare species).
You haven't mentioned in the post what exactly are you building. Is it a trail camera collecting images/videos or something else? :)
Lastly, we've spent a fair share of time tinkering with our own electronics, before realising that outsourcing the design+production of components is way faster/cheaper.
If you want to chat or generally stay in touch, add me on any socials, same name as here.
22 November 2024 2:28pm
Great resources being shared! Darwin Core is a commonly used bio-data standard as well.
For bioacoustic data, there are some metadata standards (GUANO is used by pretty much all the terrestrial ARU manufacturers). Some use Tethys as well.
Recordings are typically recorded as .WAV files but many store them as .flac (a type of lossless compression) to save on space.
For ethics, usually acoustic data platforms with a public-facing component (e.g., Arbimon, WildTrax, etc.) will mask presence/absence geographical data for species listed on the IUCN RedList, CITES, etc. so that you're not giving away geographical information on where a species is to someone who would use it to go hunt them for example.
HeinrichS