topic: Sensors

topic: Sensors

Social media activity version | Lean version

‘We’re doing so much with so little’: Interview with WildLabs’ Talia Speaker
- The use of technology for conservation and wildlife monitoring increased in recent years, with camera traps and remote sensing being the most popular tools, a report has found.
- The report by conservation technology network WildLabs also found that artificial intelligence was highly ranked for its potential impact, but was ranked low in terms of current performance because of accessibility issues.
- Marginalized groups, including women and people from lower-income countries, were found to face disproportionate barriers to accessing resources and training.
- “The motivation behind this research was to capture the experiences of the global conservation technology community, and to speak with a united voice,” says Talia Speaker, who led the research.

Betting on biodiversity: Q&A with Superorganism’s Kevin Webb & Tom Quigley
- Superorganism is a newly launched venture capital firm, touted to be the first that’s dedicated to addressing the biodiversity crisis.
- The firm aims to support startups that are developing and deploying technology to prevent biodiversity loss and protect nature.
- The firm’s early portfolio includes companies that are working to tackle extinction drivers and finding solutions that lay at the intersection of biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation.

Origami-inspired sensor platforms tumble like leaves to study forests
- Scientists have developed a tiny, lightweight, shape-shifting platform that can hold a variety of environmental sensors and be dropped from drones to study far-flung locations.
- The design for the platforms, known as microfliers, was inspired by origami, the Japanese art of paper folding.
- Each microflier can snap between two shapes while in the air, allowing them to have different trajectories and thus disperse across a larger area when they land.
- Though they haven’t been used in any scientific studies yet, microfliers could be useful for the large-scale deployment of environmental sensors measuring and transmitting data on pressure, temperature, humidity, or lighting conditions, among others.

Taking the global pulse of biodiversity monitoring: Q&A with Andrew Gonzalez
- A group of scientists have put forward a proposal to set up a global network that centralizes biodiversity monitoring and facilitates seamless sharing of data.
- The group wants its proposed Global Biodiversity Observing System (GBiOS) to function similarly to the network of local weather monitoring stations across the world, whose data are used to analyze and monitor climate change.
- While the technology being used to monitor biodiversity has become more sophisticated over the years, there still exists a void in getting different communities to work together to address the broader challenges in dealing with the biodiversity crisis.
- “We would not only federate people who are working together more effectively, but also fill many of the gaps in the data that currently exist in the biodiversity field,” Andrew Gonzalez, who is leading the proposal for GBiOS, told Mongabay.

New Tree Tech: Real-time, long-term, high-tech reforestation monitoring
- This four-part Mongabay mini-series examines the latest technological solutions to help tree-planting projects achieve scale and long-term efficiency. Using these innovative approaches could be vital for meeting international targets to repair degraded ecosystems, sequester carbon, and restore biodiversity.
- Many people see reforestation as a quick fix to the climate emergency, but tree-planting projects often fail to put in place the monitoring programs needed to track newly planted forests. Traditionally, forest monitoring has been done by hand, one tree at a time, which is extremely expensive and time-consuming.
- Satellites are mapping and remapping the entire planet daily, providing real-time data that can be used to monitor forests remotely. Drones can fly over or through forests to collect data on tree growth, bridging the gap between on-site measurements and distant satellites.
- Sensors can be installed to monitor individual trees directly, while people can collect and analyze the data electronically from a safer and easier-to-access location. Multiple sensors can form a distributed network that returns detailed information on the growth of each tree within huge reforestation plots.

Air pollution sensors found to store crucial biodiversity data
- A team of scientists have discovered that two air quality monitoring stations in the U.K. also collected DNA samples that could benefit biodiversity monitoring.
- Scientists analyzed DNA samples trapped in the two air pollution sensors and identified 180 taxa of mammals, plants, birds and invertebrates.
- The findings signal the presence of a trove of biodiversity data hidden in air pollution sensors around the world.
- The sampling and analysis of airborne DNA is a relatively new methodology to survey biodiversity; experts say further studies are required to determine its wider applications.

Tech revolution holds world of promise for conservation, but challenges persist
- Technology has rapidly changed the face of conservation and is now at a critical juncture where cutting edge tools are available, but aren’t necessarily as accessible or affordable as they need to be.
- A recent survey by WILDLABS, an online platform connecting conservation technology experts, shows that environmental DNA, networked sensors and artificial intelligence tools are the fields that hold the most promise.
- Yet despite the progress that’s been made, there are still many barriers to accessibility for local and Indigenous communities.
- Experts say collaboration and partnerships between conservationists, tech developers and local and Indigenous communities will be key to ensuring that conservation tech can continue having an impact.

Camera trap study shows conservation efforts ‘are working’ on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula: Video
- The largest-ever camera trap study in Central America, on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula, has revealed how human disturbance affects where animals live and how they’re grouped.
- Protected areas and healthy forests held a greater diversity of animals as well as larger species like tapirs, jaguars and pumas, while places with more human activity had fewer species, which tended to be smaller, more common animals like opossums and agoutis.
- The camera trap study, begun in early 2018, shows many species have recovered completely in the forest reserves around Corcovado National Park, indicating that conservation efforts over the past 30 years have been largely effective.
- Local conservation groups are now focused on creating wilderness corridors so larger species like jaguars can rebound in neighboring forests.

LIDAR technology leads Brazilian team to 30 story tall Amazon tree
- A research team using cutting edge LIDAR technology is mapping the Brazilian Amazon to create a detailed biomass map in order to track the impacts of land use change on forest carbon emissions — data collection required under the Paris Climate Agreement and paid for by the Amazon Fund.
- While conducting their LIDAR survey by aircraft, the study team detected several groves of immense trees on the border between Pará and Amapá states. One individual, a red angelim (Dinizia excelsa Ducke) was recorded as being 88.5 meters (just over 290 feet) tall.
- A team of 30 researchers, guided by riverine community guides, made the arduous journey to the giant tree groves. They found some of the trees growing atop a hill, which is unusual because big tropical trees generally thrive in low places safe from wind. Further research is needed to learn why they grow there.
- The giant trees are more than a source of wonder: each can sequester up to 40 tons of carbon, nearly as much as a hectare (2.4 acres) of typical forest. So, when managing a forest and deciding which trees to cut, it is important to consider tree size. In this particular case, the loss of one giant red angelim’s carbon footprint would be huge.

‘No place to hide’ for illegal fishing fleets as surveillance satellites prepare for lift-off
- A low-cost satellite revolution is paving the way for real-time monitoring of fishing vessels using synthetic-aperture radar (SAR).
- SAR allows researchers to monitor ‘dark vessels’ that aren’t transmitting Automatic Identification Signals (AIS) location data.
- Disabling or manipulating AIS transmitters is a tactic commonly used by vessels engaged in illegal fishing activity.

Baby whale wears a camera, reveals its travel and nursing behavior: video
- A video taken by a camera carried by a baby whale shows underwater nursing behavior from the calf’s perspective.
- The CATS Cam camera used in the filming incorporates multiple environmental sensors, such as depth and temperature, as well as movement and acceleration by the calf.
- The unusual perspective may help researchers better understand the nursing process of a baby whale, including surfacing to breathe while its mother remains underwater and suckling from mammary slits on each side of its mom.

Conservation tech prize with invasive species focus announces finalists
- The Con X Tech Prize announced its second round will fund 20 finalists, selected from 150 applications, each with $3,500 to create their first prototypes of designs that use technology to address a conservation challenge.
- Seven of the 20 teams focused their designs on reducing impacts from invasive species, while the others addressed a range of conservation issues, from wildlife trafficking to acoustic monitoring to capturing freshwater plastic waste in locally-built bamboo traps.
- Conservation X Labs (CXL), which offers the prize, says the process provides winners with very early-stage funding, a rare commodity, and recognition of external approval, each of which has potential to motivate finalists and translate into further funding.
- Finalists can also compete for a grand prize of $20,000 and product support from CXL.

Lift-off for thermal-imaging system to estimate wildlife populations
- A research team hailed a breakthrough in their imaging system’s ability to detect and identify orangutans in tropical rainforest.
- They now plan for computer algorithms to report back what a thermal camera has seen in real time.
- The researchers believe the system could also be used to spot poachers targeting rare species.

Combining artificial intelligence and citizen science to improve wildlife surveys
- Migratory species play a key role in the health of the Serengeti ecosystem in East Africa, but monitoring their populations is a time- and labor-intensive task.
- Scientists studying these wildebeest populations compared expert observer counts of aerial imagery to corresponding counts by both volunteer citizen scientists and deep learning algorithms.
- Both novel methods were able to produce accurate wildebeest counts from the images with minor modifications, the algorithms doing so faster than humans.
- Use of automated object detection algorithms requires prior “training” with specific data sets, which in this case came from the volunteer counts, suggesting that the two methods are both useful and complementary.

AI and drone-based imagery improve power to survey cryptic animals
- Developing effective management strategies for threatened species like koalas requires knowing where and how many are in a target area, but surveying cryptic low-density animals can lead to variable estimates.
- A recent study has introduced a new automated method for wildlife detection using a pair of object detection machine learning algorithms to detect animals’ heat signatures in drone-derived thermal imaging.
- By understanding error rates of different survey methods and including appropriate technology, the researchers say, wildlife monitoring can become more efficient and effective.

The odor side of otters: Tech reveals species’ adaptations to human activity
- Recent studies of an elusive otter species living in the highly modified mangroves and reclaimed lands on the coast of Goa, India offer new insights into otter behavior that could inform future conservation efforts.
- Researchers have studied these adaptable otters with camera traps, ground GPS surveys, and satellite images; they’re now testing drone photogrammetry to improve the accuracy of their habitat mapping.
- Using data gathered over a period of time, the researchers aim to pinpoint changes in the landscape and, in combination with the behavioral data gathered by the camera traps, understand how otters are reacting to these changes.

The good luck black cat, revealed by camera traps
- Camera traps enabled researchers and a professional photographer to document the presence of a rare melanistic (black) leopard, confirming reports of the cat in northern Kenya.
- Five different remote camera stations, positioned near water sources and trails, recorded the young female leopard over three months.
- The case demonstrates the value of remotely placed sensors in capturing both shy, cryptic animals and rare events in nature, such as melanism, which results from genes producing a surplus of pigment in an animal’s skin or hair so that it appears black.

How do you assess if a reintroduced species is thriving? Listen for it
- Researchers in New Zealand combined sound data from acoustic monitoring devices with species occupancy models to assess the success of translocating an endangered New Zealand bird, the hihi, to invasive species-free locations.
- The scientists say in their paper that advances in acoustic monitoring and statistical techniques have made it possible to infer spatial and temporal changes in population dynamics without needing to track individual animals.
- As wildlife managers increasingly release animals back to their historic ranges, cost-effective, non-invasive data collection, automated pattern recognition, and analysis techniques that predict the likelihood of species occupying a given location over time could improve the success of the reintroduction process.

Study finds bears react, then habituate, to drones
- Small drones increasingly serve as tools to monitor wildlife, detect habitat change, or search for poachers, but their use may be stressing out the animals being studied or other species.
- A research team tested whether black bears would habituate to the repeated presence of drones flying overhead and, if so, whether they would remain habituated to additional flights conducted after a break.
- The bears showed an increased tolerance to drone flights in the short term, which they maintained after a nearly four-month pause.
- With the expanding use of drones in wildlife and habitat studies, the researchers expect their findings to help inform best practices that could reduce animal disturbance in the long run.

As animal tagging goes cutting-edge, ethical questions abound
- An increasing number of animal tracking devices, known as biologgers, also measure environmental variables such as sound, temperature, and ocean salinity.
- Data from biologgers complement information on an animal’s movements and help scientists understand its environment, but can have measurable effects on the animal’s behavior or reproduction.
- As the field of biologging rapidly grows, scientists are trying to develop ethical frameworks for applying devices to wild animals.

New space lasers offer best 3D look at global forests yet
- Forest monitoring has increasingly turned to satellites over the past several decades, and 2018 was no exception.
- In the last few months, NASA launched two sensors into space that will play a prominent role in monitoring forest biomass and structure over the next decade: the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) now attached to the International Space Station, and the Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2).
- These two satellites, which in combination provide complete coverage of the planet, are equipped with lidar sensors that record forest structure in 3D, contributing to an ongoing wave of large-scale forest ecosystem measurements.

Drones with thermal cameras help detect camouflaged species
- Scientists tested the capacity of small drones equipped with thermal cameras to survey European nightjar nests in areas where construction or logging is planned.
- Nightjars use camouflage and cryptic behavior to avoid predation, which makes them difficult to observe on the ground and avoid disturbing, as required by U.K. law. Finding a faster, more cost-effective survey method to detect their presence could help forestry and construction managers comply with regulations more efficiently.
- The scientists say that the drone-thermal camera combination would be suitable for surveying other open-country wildlife, and could be aided by automated analysis of the thermal signatures of target species.

Audio: Rhett Butler on how sound can save forests and top rainforest storylines to watch in 2019
- On today’s episode, we welcome Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Butler to discuss the biggest rainforest news stories of 2018 and what storylines to watch in 2019. He also discusses a new peer-reviewed paper he co-authored that looks at how bioacoustics can help us monitor forests and the wildlife that call forests home.
- This year marks the 20th anniversary since Rhett Butler founded Mongabay. Subscribers to our new Insider Content Program already know the story of how he founded Mongabay.com two decades ago in his pajamas. At first, Mongabay was a labor of love that Rhett pursued in his spare time, after coming home from his day job.
- Mongabay has come a long way since then, with more than 350 contributors covering 50 countries and bureaus now open in India, Indonesia, and Latin America. Overseeing this global environmental news empire provides Rhett with a wealth of insight into the science and trends that are shaping conservation.

Eavesdrop on forest sounds to effectively monitor biodiversity, researchers say
- Recording and analyzing forest soundscapes can be an effective way of monitoring changes in animal communities in tropical forests and human presence, researchers say in a new commentary published in Science.
- Bioacoustics, which can be used to cover a vast range of animal groups over large landscapes, can also fill the gap between the bird’s-eye view of satellites and the finer focus of on-the-ground surveys, to give a clearer picture of animal population trends over large landscapes.
- Moreover, bioacoustics has the potential to be an important tool in assessing what’s working and what’s not working in conservation, such as to monitor forests maintained by companies under certification or zero-deforestation commitments.
- The researchers have called for improvements in processing and analysis of huge acoustic data sets, which at the moment are the major bottlenecks in soundscape research.

10 ways conservation tech shifted into auto in 2018
- Conservation scientists are increasingly automating their research and monitoring work, to make their analyses faster and more consistent; moreover, machine learning algorithms and neural networks constantly improve as they process additional information.
- Pattern recognition detects species by their appearance or calls; quantifies changes in vegetation from satellite images; tracks movements by fishing ships on the high seas.
- Automating even part of the analysis process, such as eliminating images with no animals, substantially reduces processing time and cost.
- Automated recognition of target objects requires a reference database: the species and objects used to create the algorithm determine the universe of species and objects the system will then be able to identify.

Hobby-grade drones can monitor marine animals beneath the surface
- Researchers in The Bahamas have been testing just how good drone videos can be for estimating the abundance and distribution of large marine animals found just beneath the ocean’s surface.
- They flew aerial surveys using commercial-grade drones along six tidal creeks facing high and low human impact, to count sharks, rays, and sea turtles — groups that are both threatened and difficult to monitor. The findings from multiple sites suggest that shoreline development negatively affects the abundance and distribution of various marine species.
- The study also showed that using lower-cost consumer drones equipped with video cameras could help researchers effectively and non-invasively estimate abundance of these marine megafauna in shallow waters and compare data across sites.

A monitoring network in the Amazon captures a flood of data
- Cameras and microphones are capturing images and sounds of the world’s largest rainforest to monitor the Amazon’s species and environmental dynamics in an unprecedented way.
- The Providence Project’s series of networked sensors is aimed at complementing remote-sensing data on forest cover change by revealing ecological interactions beneath the forest canopy.
- Capable of continuously recording, processing and transmitting information to a database in real time, this high-tech experiment involves research institutions from three countries and the skills of biologists, engineers, computer scientists and other experts.
- The monitoring system will connect to a website to disseminate the forest biodiversity data interactively, which the researchers hope will contribute to more effective biodiversity conservation strategies.

Peru’s Brazil nut harvesters learn to monitor forests with drones
- Brazil nut and ecotourism concessions in the Amazon maintain intact rainforest, but deforestation by illegal loggers, miners, and agriculturalists threaten the integrity of these lands and the Brazil nut industry.
- The Peruvian NGO Conservación Amazónica – ACCA is training concessionaires and forestry officials in southeastern Peru to fly drones and monitor the properties they manage using drone-based cameras.
- The resulting high-resolution aerial images enable concessionaires to detect and quantify deforestation within their Brazil nut, ecotourism, and other forest concessions and support their claims of illegal activity to the authorities.

For the birds: Innovations enable tracking of even small flying animals
- Advances in satellite communications have revolutionized wildlife telemetry, yet tracking the movements of small animals, especially ones that fly, and marine species, which rarely break the ocean’s surface, has remained a challenge.
- In a November 20th virtual meetup on next-generation wildlife tracking, three speakers introduced developments that have broadened telemetry’s reach to new species and new types of data being collected.
- Recent innovations — including the ICARUS tracking system, hybridization of communications platforms, and miniaturization of sensors — are producing tiny solar-powered tracking tags and tags carrying various environmental sensors that function within private networks flexible enough to use the most efficient of several communications technologies available at a given site.

Virtual meetup highlights networked sensor technology for parks
- To encourage communication between the conservation community and technology developers, the WILDLABS platform began a series of virtual meetups earlier this month.
- Speakers in the first meetup represented three groups developing and deploying networked sensors for improving wildlife security and reducing human-wildlife conflict.
- The three tech developers described lessons they’ve learned on meeting the needs of rangers and reserve managers, using drones to fight poaching, and adapting technology to function in remote areas under difficult conditions.

Pod-cast: New app streams whale songs for web users in real time
- Researchers have developed a web application to enable citizen scientists to listen for the sounds of a population of killer whales off North America’s northeast Pacific coast in real time.
- A network of underwater microphones will stream sounds from under the sea to citizen scientists, who can then report any unusual noises and help decode orca language.
- The researchers have found that human listeners can readily detect unusual sounds amid a stream of underwater noise, and their participation can complement machine-learning algorithms being developed.

Speed trap: Cameras help defuse human-cheetah conflict in Botswana
- Increases in human-wildlife conflict could undermine Botswana’s conservation efforts, with farmers in some areas shooting carnivores preventatively to protect their livestock.
- Camera traps have helped researchers in Botswanan farmland to monitor cheetahs and other elusive or low-density predators without habituating them to human presence, a key feature in areas where farmers believe they will kill livestock.
- Communicating with local farmers and sharing camera-trap data on cheetahs’ territorial behavior and long-distance travel can help show farmers there may be far fewer individuals than they realize — “the cheetah seen today on one farm may be the same one seen [earlier] several farms away.”

Satellite technology unites Kenyans against bush fires
- The Eastern and Southern Africa Fire Information System (ESAFIS), an online application developed in Kenya, uses MODIS satellite information to detect bush fires in eastern Africa.
- The freely available app maps and categorizes bush fires in near-real time and shows details of each fire , including the time it was detected, its location with respect to towns and protected areas, and its relative intensity.
- By providing an early fire warning system, the system helps forest management authorities respond to fires in their early stages and prioritize limited resources to fire hotspots.

AI simplifies statewide study of leopards in south India
- A six-year study of leopards in the wildlife-rich southern Indian state of Karnataka, using grids of motion-sensor camera traps across the state, suggests the big cats are thriving in a variety of habitats and land uses.
- The researchers’ use of machine-learning algorithms significantly reduced the workload needed to identify 363 individual leopards from the sample’s 1.5 million camera-trap images. The figure indicates there are an estimated 2,500 leopards living in Karnataka.
- Although a forest department official said the state was unlikely to expand its protected forests in the foreseeable future, the researchers said such a policy was necessary for leopard conservation, stressing that the proximity of natural landscapes to agricultural fields allows leopards to use those unprotected areas.

How porpoise sounds helped researchers test acoustic devices
- A team of scientists used playbacks of recorded and artificial porpoise clicks to develop an adaptable method to assess the area in which acoustic monitoring devices can reliably detect these sounds
- Researchers need to know how far away they can expect acoustic data loggers to capture the sounds of target animals to estimate the density of those animals from the recordings.
- The cetacean data loggers could reliably detect the click signals up to nearly 200 meters (656 feet), which translated to a circular sampling area of 11 hectares (27 acres) per device.
- The data logger algorithms could correctly classify the clicks as porpoise sounds only up to 72 meters (236 feet), representing a reliable sampling areas of just 1.6 hectares (4 acres) that could be used to estimate the density of a specific species, an issue affecting researchers working with more than one echolocating species.

The Osa Camera Trap Network: Uniting people to monitor biodiversity
- The Osa Camera Trap Network monitors big cats and their prey on public and private lands across Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula.
- Concern about connectivity for apex predators between Corcovado National Park and mainland Costa Rica has encouraged the participation of a diverse cadre of stakeholders that has broadened the scale of the project.
- Clear communication, together with a few photos of resident jaguars, have allowed the network’s 23 institutions and communities to install and maintain more than 200 cameras providing the baseline data needed for long-term monitoring of the area’s mammals.

The iNaturalist species data sharing platform reaches one million users
- The iNaturalist species data-sharing platform reached a milestone earlier this month with its one millionth observer.
- The 10-year-old platform and mobile app use several smartphone technologies, crowd-sourced data, and artificial intelligence to help observers identify the species of plants and animals they see.
- Co-founder Scott Loarie highlighted the rapid progress in computer vision technology as a surprisingly helpful technology that complements crowdsourcing to speed the image identification process for a large number of photos, though it has also introduced other concerns, including how to maintain high data quality.

For an Amazon tribe, phone cameras shine a light on their wildlife
- Armed with smartphone cameras, teams of indigenous Matsés people have partnered with North American herpetologists to inventory the reptiles and amphibians of their territory along the remote divide between Peru and Brazil.
- The easy-to-use cameras are robust, small enough to carry while climbing a tree or crossing a stream, store thousands of images, and can be recharged with low-cost solar panels.
- The teams have built a database of more than 2,000 photos, including several new species, and they have expanded the known distributions of other species.
- The long-term project complements rapid ecological assessments of a poorly studied region and empowers Matsés elders to pass on their knowledge of the region’s forests to both their families and the outside world.

Tech prize finalists promote collaboration to fight extinction
- Conservation X Labs recently announced 20 finalists for the Con X Tech Prize. As finalists, each project receives $3,500 seed money to develop ideas that may be early stage or broad in scope.
- Among the finalists, the Wild N.O.S.E technology will use olfactory data to detect animals or animal parts and help stem trafficking, and the Right Whale Auto-Detect project listens for and identifies whale calls and then warns ships of whales in the area.
- These projects express Con X Tech values, such as collaboration, working across disciplines and thinking big enough to deliver transformative conservation solutions with “exponential impact.” One finalist will be selected in November 2018 to receive the $20,000 grand prize.

Decoding the language of bats key to their conservation
- Uruguayan scientists have developed a new artificial intelligence algorithm and reference library of bat ultrasound pulses to enable the use of acoustic monitoring of this understudied regional fauna.
- Bats in the Southern Cone are threatened by wind turbines, but their species and sonar emissions differ from other areas, requiring the scientists to build their own acoustic library and predictive algorithms.
- The scientists are collaborating with wind farm companies and international academics to help expand the reference library and improve the algorithm’s accuracy and speed.

Nepali scientists deploy drones to count endangered crocodiles
- Researchers in Nepal used drone images to survey critically endangered gharial crocodiles along the banks of the Babai River, comparing their results to those of multi-team ground surveys.
- Analysis of the drone images produced counts of gharials and mugger crocodiles similar to those of ground survey teams, in less time and at a lower cost.
- The researchers stressed the importance of conducting aerial surveys when environmental conditions are most conducive, such as during the winter months when water clarity in the Babai River enables counts of gharials just under the water’s surface.

Video analysis shows baby birds avoid predators while building strength
- By monitoring grassland bird nests with small video cameras, researchers are learning why and when chicks first venture into the outside world.
- A recent study using video footage showed that nestlings of different species left their nests at different times of the day and over varying lengths of time, from less than one hour to three days for nests with multiple chicks.
- Smaller and more affordable video equipment is allowing scientists to study events, such as bird nest predation and fledging, that happen quickly, generally when humans are absent.

An anti-poaching technology for elephants that is always listening
- Summer 2018 marked the successful completion of the first of three test phases for a new anti-poaching technology elephants can wear on a tracking collar.
- Called WIPER by its development team, the device integrates with wildlife tracking collars and listens for the shockwave, or sonic boom, of a high-powered rifle, a common weapon in the industrial killing of elephants and other megafauna.
- WIPER’s design overcomes two key challenges for high-tech wildlife monitoring: power source (by creating a sleep mode) and cost (by putting designs in the public domain).
- WIPER provides real-time alerts and location data when a rifle is fired within 50 meters (50 yards) of the collared animal. WIPER may not protect the animal wearing it, but it helps security personnel close in on poachers, which may deter future poaching.

Fire, more than logging, drives Amazon forest degradation, study finds
- Forest degradation has historically been overlooked in accounting and monitoring carbon stocks.
- A recent study combined ground-based inventory, satellite and LiDAR data to record the loss of carbon due to forest degradation in areas exposed to logging, fire damage, or both, in the arc of deforestation of the southeastern Amazon.
- The study revealed that fire damage causes greater losses than logging, and fire-damaged forests recovered more slowly than logged forests.
- Accurate depictions of both deforestation and degradation are necessary to establish emissions baselines used to inform programs to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+).

Automating drone-based wildlife surveys saves time and money, study finds
- Reserve managers have begun to survey wildlife in savanna ecosystems by analyzing thousands of images captured using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones), a time-consuming process.
- A research team has developed machine learning models that analyze such aerial images and automatically identify those images most likely to contain animals, which, according to the authors, is usually a small fraction of the total number of images taken during a UAV survey effort.
- The new algorithms reduced the number of images that needed human verification to less than one-third of that using earlier models, and they highlight the patterns in those images that are most likely to be animals, making the technique useful for image-based surveys of large landscapes with animals in relatively few images.

In Kenya’s Maasai Mara, detection dogs are a ranger’s best friend
- For World Ranger Day 2018, we highlight how detection dogs help rangers keep wildlife — and the rangers themselves — safe in Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve.
- Sniffer dogs search vehicles for ivory and firearms, while tracker dogs enable rangers to track and capture wildlife poachers, thieves in lodges, and cattle rustlers in surrounding villages.
- The dogs have enabled rangers to follow up on intelligence and increase their arrest rate, which they hope will make poaching less viable for local communities and improve security in the region.

Online mapping tool tracks land-use changes down to the farm
- The online mapping platform MapHubs stores maps and spatial data and makes them available to user groups for viewing, analyzing, and sharing with stakeholders.
- Users purchase a portal on the platform that allows the group to combine various public and private data sets in one secure place, produce maps, customize how the portal presents information, and receive support when needed.
- Groups have used the platform to identify deforestation from oil palm and cacao plantations and generate products such as time-lapse videos to show how regional deforestation can shift and expand.

‘Better and better’: Thermal cameras turn up the heat on poachers
- The annual Serengeti-Maasai Mara wildebeest migration attracts not just tourists, but also bushmeat poachers, who kill between 40,000 and 100,000 animals along the way.
- In 2016, the Mara Conservancy began using FLIR thermal cameras, which detect heat instead of light, to find and capture poachers at night, when they are most active.
- Thermal imaging, together with a motivated team using high-quality digital radios, has led to the capture of over 100 people and left poachers at a loss as to how they’re being detected.

Citizen science makes easy work of penguin time-lapse image bounty
- A multinational research team has deployed time-lapse cameras at various penguin breeding colonies to enable a widespread, long-term study of these top predators in the Antarctic ecosystem.
- Volunteers have played a critical role in processing the millions of images resulting from the multi-year study to better understand reproductive behavior and nest success rates across the Antarctic Peninsula, South Shetland Islands, and South Georgia.
- Citizen scientists can help produce large data sets needed to train artificial intelligence algorithms.

Cool birds don’t sing: Study automates acoustic monitoring of songbird migration
- Researchers have developed machine learning techniques to identify bird song from thousands of hours of field recordings, using the information to uncover variations in migratory songbirds’ arrival to their Arctic breeding grounds.
- They deployed automated listening devices during spring over five years, analyzed vocal activity to estimate when birds arrived at their breeding sites, and assessed relationships between vocal activity and environmental conditions.
- They found that the acoustically derived estimates of the birds’ arrival dates were similar to those determined using standard field surveys.
- Temperature and presence of snow affected the birds’ calling patterns, suggesting that collecting corresponding weather data could help avoid bias in using acoustic monitoring to assess population dynamics.

New study provides blueprint to translate satellite data into conservation action
- A new paper offers a protocol to help conservation practitioners integrate forest-monitoring technology with policy to reduce illegal deforestation.
- Public and private entities can more easily access the latest satellite-based remote-sensing technology to rapidly detect new deforestation, prioritize areas for action, identify the causes, and get the information to policymakers without delay.
- The study calls for increased use of satellite technology to improve the monitoring, understanding and communication of deforestation events, as well as increase engagement between government institutions and civil society.

Species recognition shifts into auto with neural networks
- Scientists have shown that a cutting-edge type of artificial intelligence can automatically count, identify, and describe the behaviors of 48 animal species in camera trap images taken in the Serengeti ecosystem.
- The team used a dataset of 3.2 million wildlife images to train and test deep convolutional neural networks to recognize not only individual animals but also what the animals are doing in each image.
- The models performed as well as human volunteers in identifying, counting, and describing the behavior of animals in nearly all the Serengeti camera trap images and also identified those images that required human review.
- The widespread use of motion-sensor camera traps for wildlife research and conservation, coupled with the inefficiency of manual image processing, means successful automation of some or all of the image analysis process is likely to save researchers time and money, as well as catalyze new uses of remote camera photos.

This tiny camera aims to catch poachers — before they kill
- A Tanzanian game reserve has successfully tested the TrailGuard cryptic camera and 24/7 electronic surveillance system to detect and capture wildlife poachers and their snares.
- The system uses image recognition algorithms and real-time image transmission to help the often limited patrolling staff of many protected areas identify and respond to potential poachers along trails before they kill their target animals.
- Despite some difficulties with installation and the algorithms, the TrailGuard units in Tanzania have photographed 40 reserve intruders, including poachers or trespassers, resulting in the arrests of 13 suspects.
- The designers are currently developing a new, lower-cost version of the system to be built later this year that they expect will address the difficulties and be more widely available.

Vibrations from elephant calls and movements reflect distinct behaviors, study says
- Elephants create inaudible seismic waves when they move or “rumble” that complement the audible sound we hear and that researchers can detect using geophones placed in the ground.
- In a new study, elephants walking or calling through low-frequency rumbles created distinct seismic signals the transmission of which was affected by both local geological structure and low-frequency human-generated noise.
- The research suggests that elephants not only generate these distinct vibrations through their different activities, but can also perceive the difference from at least one kilometer away, suggesting they are using the vibration patterns to communicate.

From galaxies far, far away to endangered species just over the hill
- Astrophysicists and conservation ecologists have teamed up to apply the heat-detection software and machine-learning algorithms used to find stars to automatically identify people and different animal species.
- The system detects warm, living objects from drone-derived thermal video footage and uses a reference database to identify the various objects efficiently and reliably.
- The research team is refining the system to overcome challenges of variable environmental conditions, as well as hot rocks and other “thermally bright” but uninteresting objects, while building a reference database of multiple target species.

Radar returns to remote sensing through free, near-real-time global imagery
- The European Space Agency’s launch of the Sentinel-1 satellite has made 20-meter resolution radar imagery of the whole planet freely available.
- The “all-weather, day-and-night supply of imagery of Earth’s surface” complements standard optical satellite imagery in detecting forest loss, even under heavy cloud cover.
- The Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) demonstrates the benefits of analyzing free radar imagery to accurately quantify wet season loss of rainforest in the Peruvian Amazon.

Detecting disasters on community lands in the Amazon: film highlights indigenous struggle
- For decades, indigenous communities across the western Amazon have protested the contamination of their water, soil and other natural resources by oil companies.
- A short film, “Detecting Disasters,” explores the use by the Kukama Kukamiria and other indigenous groups of small drones to strengthen their case to officials and reduce future damage to their health and that of their forest resources.
- The successful, consistent use of drones and other new technologies by remote communities requires overcoming several basic challenges, including adequate electricity, training time, and availability of parts to make repairs.

Coral reef monitoring takes to the skies: drone-mounted hyperspectral cameras help scientists assess health of coral reefs
- Hyperspectral images taken from cameras on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are helping scientists survey the composition and health of coral reefs under the water.
- These images capture information from visible (light) and non-visible sections of the electromagnetic spectrum thereby offering information the human eye can’t see.
- When paired with UAVs or satellites, hyperspectral images allow researchers to survey the reef habitats–including coral, sand, and algae–over large areas as well as monitor the health of individual corals.

Drones enable fast, accurate wildlife counts, study shows
- Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have great potential for surveying wildlife, especially species that assemble in large numbers and that are easily disturbed by human presence.
- Scientists creatively combined high-tech UAVs and computer-vision algorithms with rubber ducks to assess the potential of aerial imagery to count seabirds relative to traditional survey methods.
- They found that both human and semi-automated computer counts of colony-nesting birds from UAV-derived images were more accurate and less variable than counts made by observers on the ground.
- Combining UAV-derived imagery with artificial intelligence can help scientists more accurately estimate population sizes with less variability.

Powering cameras and empowering people
- Keeping equipment running in harsh field conditions can challenge any tech project, as can working successfully with volunteers.
- Mongabay-Wildtech spoke with leaders of one project, wpsWatch, that deploys connected camera traps to monitor wildlife and people in reserves and employs volunteers to monitor image feeds from afar.
- Powering equipment for field surveillance and “making it part of everyone’s day” enable the rapid image detection, communication, and response by ground patrols needed to successfully apprehend wildlife poachers using cameras and other sensors.

Crowdsourcing the fight against poaching, with the help of remote cameras
- A U.S. non-profit and a cadre of volunteers have teamed up with reserves in South Africa and Indonesia to combat wildlife poaching through a series of connected camera traps.
- The group’s monitoring system, wpsWatch, can transmit visual, infrared, and thermal camera images as well as data from radar, motion detectors, and other field devices.
- The volunteers monitor image feeds while rangers sleep and have become an effective part of the team, which has detected roughly 180 intrusions into the reserves, including rhino and bushmeat poachers.

10 top conservation tech innovations from 2017
- The increased portability and reduced cost of data collection and synthesis tools have transformed how we research and conserve the natural world.
- Devices from visual and acoustic sensors to DNA sequencers help us better understand the world around us, and they combine with online mapping platforms to help us monitor it.
- New online and mobile apps have democratized data collection, inspiring a brave new world of citizen scientists to learn about the species around them, contribute to conservation and scientific discovery, and feel part of a learning community.
- Here, we present 10 tech trends we covered in 2017, in no particular order, that have helped us better understand nature, monitor its status, and take action to protect it.

New resource for planning camera trapping, acoustic monitoring, and LiDAR projects
- WWF-UK has produced a website and series of best-practice guideline documents to help field teams deploy camera trapping, acoustic monitoring, and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR).
- The guidelines address issues ranging from assessing the relevance of each method to a particular project goal and ecosystem, to practical tips for deployment, to the physics behind the functioning of the technology.
- The resource should help readers planning a specific project using one or more of these approaches and include extensive lists of published studies for each method.

Rethinking camera traps for the small, fast, and elusive
- To solve the logistical challenge of filming hummingbirds, researchers have developed a mechanical camera trap trigger system that separates the camera from the sensors that detect an animal’s movement or heat.
- The independent positioning of multiple sensors enables users to detect small, fast-moving animals before they reach the camera and to adapt to immediate surroundings, such as vegetation that can trigger unwanted photos.
- The do-it-yourself nature of the circuit, powered by AA batteries, keeps it low-cost, long-lasting, and easy to recharge for those with some knowledge of wiring and electronics.

Deforestation from gold mining in Peru continues, despite gov’t crackdowns
- A team of scientists from the Carnegie Institution for Science found that, between 1999 and 2016, gold mining expansion cost the region 4,437 hectares (10,964 acres) of forest loss per year.
- Miners were working an area in 2016 that was 40 percent larger than it was in 2012.
- The findings, along analyses by ecologists at the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project, indicate that increased enforcement by the Peruvian government has slowed the rate of deforestation.

Camera trapping in the trees
- Sets of remote cameras placed in trees can detect a wide range of diurnal and nocturnal arboreal vertebrates and help assess species presence relative to environmental factors.
- This relatively cost-effective, non-invasive monitoring technology requires effort to design and set up, but it can function for months with minimal oversight or maintenance.
- Three studies suggest solutions to various challenges—including leaf-triggered photos, high humidity, and insect infestation—facing research teams interested in surveying and monitoring vertebrate communities in the canopy.

Seeing in the dark and more: Facts and FAQs about thermal imaging
- In this first of a new Wildtech series on “What is that technology?” we explore thermal imaging and its applications for wildlife.
- Thermography, or thermal imaging, detects infrared radiation to help see objects in the dark.
- Thermal cameras distinguish the relative temperature of objects around us to help us see warmer objects – like people and animals – against cooler backdrops, even at night.
- Thermal imaging has multiple applications for wildlife conservation, including helping with anti-poaching efforts, wildlife veterinary diagnoses, studying animal behavior, and nighttime filming for wildlife documentaries.

Swallowing swimming pools: New sensory tags capture kinetics of lunge-feeding whales
- Researchers have developed and deployed sensory tags with video cameras to study how rorquals, a type of baleen whale, lunge feed and maximize their consumption despite the huge energetic cost.
- Comprehending the dynamics of lunge feeding and its energy tradeoffs could inform whale conservation and fisheries management.
- The scientists hope to develop the tags with a more compact design, more reliable sensors, and longer battery life, and they want to better understand the baleen and compare and analyze lunge feeding and its energetics across whales.

KEDR: Watching over the cedar forests of the Russian Far East
- KEDR uses an algorithm to automatically analyze real-time satellite images for various canopy changes to provide forest managers precise logging intelligence so they can quickly counteract violations.
- The technology could help conserve the critically endangered Amur tiger and leopard that inhabit these forests.
- KEDR is now being implemented in two provinces and has been recommended for use throughout the country. The tool will continue to be developed with technological upgrades, high-precision satellite imagery, new algorithms and artificial intelligence.

Beyond data collection — the social and political effects of environmental sensor proliferation
- Sensors are increasingly collecting data everywhere, changing how we relate to and manage the environment.
- These data answer researchers’ scientific questions but can also generate social, cultural and political effects, reinforcing the need for more data.
- In a new book, “Program Earth: Environmental Sensing Technology and the Making of a Computational Planet,” Dr. Jennifer Gabrys suggests that the future of environmental management is a question of how and whether to “program” the Earth.

Powering aquatic research with self-charging tags
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory researchers have developed the first self-charging tracking tag, an implanted acoustic transmitter that harnesses energy from the swimming animal bearing it, for studying fish behavior throughout the organisms’ lives.
- The scientists hope the tag will help us better understand long-lived and migratory species of concern, as well as comprehend and mitigate the ramifications of dams and marine energy on fish movement and survival.
- The team will field-test the tag on white sturgeon in the Columbia and Snake rivers next year.

Acoustic monitoring: mapping ecosystems by animal calls
- Studies that confirm the presence of particular species are needed to understand and conserve them appropriately, but such studies are often costly, time-consuming and thus few and far between.
- Researchers from the University of Puerto Rico are deploying monitoring stations in the field, which record and process animal sounds to automate the collection and classification of audio data to determine species presence and compare animal communities.
- While the technology is limited to animals that call and requires some human expertise in identifying these sounds, it can provide detailed, long-term data for monitoring animal communities and informing wildlife management strategies

Feeds: news | india | latam | brasil | indonesia