WILDLABS AWARDS 2024 - Fostering bat conservation and citizen science in Zimbabwe: Establishing bat groups and training individuals to use bat detectors
4 April 2024 12:12pm
19 April 2024 2:16pm
Abigail. I would love to know more and potentially support the initiative. Please send me more info on [email protected]
24 April 2024 2:27pm
Thank you Robyn. Sure I will send more information to your email
AI volunteer work
3 February 2024 12:29pm
24 April 2024 10:59am
Hi Phani,
An entry point might be to participate in a challenge related to conservation on:
You could also reach out to a conservation organization (e. g. WWF or something smaller and more local) and ask them directly whether there's an opportunity for you to volunteer, perhaps even suggest an idea and maybe they find it useful.
I hope you find an opportunity you're looking for!
MegaDetector v5 release
20 June 2022 9:06pm
23 April 2024 9:43pm
Hi @dmorris,
might you have encountered this issue while working with Mega detector v5?
The conflict is caused by:
pytorchwildlife 1.0.2.13 depends on torch==1.10.1
pytorchwildlife 1.0.2.12 depends on torch==1.10.1
pytorchwildlife 1.0.2.11 depends on torch==1.10.1
if yes what solution helped?
23 April 2024 10:38pm
I'm sorry, I don't use PyTorch-Wildlife; I recommend filing an issue on their repo. Good luck!
23 April 2024 10:38pm
[oops, the same reply got submitted twice and there doesn't seem to be a "delete" button]
Pytorch-Wildlife: A Collaborative Deep Learning Framework for Conservation (v1.0)
21 February 2024 10:30pm
26 February 2024 11:58pm
This is great, thank you so much @zhongqimiao ! I will check it out and looking forward for the upcoming tutorial!
17 April 2024 11:07am
Hi everyone! @zhongqimiao was kind enough to join Variety Hour last month to talk more about Pytorch-Wildlife, so the recording might be of interest to folks in this thread. Catch up here:
23 April 2024 9:48pm
Hi @zhongqimiao ,
Might you have faced such an issue while using mega detector
The conflict is caused by:
pytorchwildlife 1.0.2.13 depends on torch==1.10.1
pytorchwildlife 1.0.2.12 depends on torch==1.10.1
pytorchwildlife 1.0.2.11 depends on torch==1.10.1
if yes how did you solve it, or might you have any ideas?
torch 1.10.1 doesn't seem to exist
Ecologist Postdoctoral Research Fellow
23 April 2024 4:32pm
Monitoring Team Lead, Ponterra
23 April 2024 3:19pm
Introduction and Networking
22 April 2024 9:37am
22 April 2024 10:46am
Hello and welcome to WILDLABS @loveness :)
What a great intro to what you are doing and interested in pursuing! I'd like to help direct you to our resources page, where you can check out multiple open career and academic opportunities from across your region that are posted regularly by the community. Find our Resources page linked here.
Which specific areas within conservation/conservation technology are you most interested in at the moment? We have over 32 specialised groups in our community you could explore here to help guide you as you go along your career journey :)
Best wishes!
23 April 2024 12:41pm
Hello Ms Esther👋
Thank you for taking your time to reply to me with such helpful response.
I'm interested in conservation technology such as camera traps, GIS and Remote sensing, tools like EarthRanger, wildlife tracking collars, Data collection apps. I've already joined the groups just after reading your response and I'll keep visit the Resources Page to find more opportunities.
Navigating AI and good governance for INGOs
23 April 2024 10:27am
Program Manager: Integrating movement and camera trap data with international conservation policy
22 April 2024 10:16pm
Postdoc: Biologging & Camera Trap Data Integration
22 April 2024 10:10pm
Peoples Trust For Endangered Species
22 April 2024 2:57pm
Waterproofing DIY VHF transmitter
27 March 2024 8:57am
21 April 2024 9:27am
That's my kinda crazy @Rob_Appleby. Reminds my of a concept from my last job where they were trying to create strain gauge power meters that customers could self apply to their bikes. Normally this process was done in factory using special CA glue cured in 50-90c ovens. For the self applying version they were experimenting with an adhesive that had tiny metal beads in it that would heat up when a current was applied to self cure if I remember correctly.
22 April 2024 2:44pm
Now I want to be able to drop it from a drone and have it glue itself to the fur of a deer or wild hog. I am designing that now, it will have a detachable lawn dart that drops from a drone and lands on a target animal. That lawn dart delivers the payload, either a tracker or a dose of contraceptives. Then the drone comes and picks up the lawn dart again for reloading.
So the lawn dart has a small compressed air cylinder and some pneumatic style switches. When it touches down the switch actuates and the compressed air energy is used to deliver a dose of drugs and or spray some glue and ink. That can be reloaded with a bike pump and hypodermic.
22 April 2024 2:51pm
I am working on that too haha. So in my design you load the glue gun with two part Loctite, it has two separate metal rings. Glue and hardener in each ring. Then each ring has a few tiny holes drilled, and you fill the holes with a disposable plug.
When the switch is actuated the pressure inside the metals rings goes from atm to 100kPa, and sprays the glue and hardener together as the plugs blow out. The transmitter is attached to the plugs, so it is left behind and glued in place with one switch. That loctite glue is basically instant. The whole thing would not even be that traumatic to the animal. When you score a hit, you find the lawn dart glue gun again and pick it up with the drone.
Newt belly pattern for picture-matching
18 April 2024 3:57pm
19 April 2024 10:31am
19 April 2024 4:14pm
Hi Robin this is a great idea! Have been thinking about approaching the community for quiz questions. Will reach out to Xavier to ask if we can use it or if he wishes to run it on next Wednesdays VH
22 April 2024 11:27am
Thanks, and that's a match!
All these pictures are from a lab experiment and formated with AmphIdent. We took weekly belly pictures of several larvae. The aim of this google form is to validate (by comparing answers with the lab reference image base) picture-matching by human is reliable although the change of pattern can be verry quick at this life stage.
If validated there will be the need to improve existing pattern-matching solutions for in situ observations of larvae, for instance with ML and/or Human Learning (thanks Zooniverse)...
WILDLABS AWARDS 2024 - No-code custom AI for camera trap species classification
5 April 2024 7:00pm
10 April 2024 3:55am
Happy to explain for sure. By Timelapse I mean images taken every 15 minutes, and sometimes the same seals (anywhere from 1 to 70 individuals) were in the image for many consecutive images.
17 April 2024 5:53pm
Got it. We should definitely be able to handle those images. That said, if you're just looking for counts, then I'd recommend running Megadetector which is an object detection model and outputs a bounding box around each animal.
21 April 2024 5:19pm
Hi, this is pretty interesting to me. I plan to fly a drone over wild areas and look for invasive species incursions. So feral hogs are especially bad, but in the Everglades there is a big invasion of huge snakes. In various areas there are big herds of wild horses that will eat themselves out of habitat also, just to name a few examples. Actually the data would probably be useful in looking for invasive weeds, that is not my focus but the government of Canada is thinking about it.
Does your research focus on photos, or can you analyze LIDAR? I don't really know what emitters are available to fly over an area, or which beam type would be best for each animal type. I know that some drones carry a LIDAR besides a camera for example. Maybe a thermal camera would be best to fly at night.
Conservation Tech Career Pathways - what do you want to know?
17 June 2022 1:30pm
8 May 2023 2:43am
Wildlabers,
I have been randomly trying a few things here and there for a career switch. But so far it has been in bits and pieces. Meanwhile, I have started pursuing Masters in AI and ML hoping that might bring some tractions to my career search/ switch.
Meanwhile, I keep at it while being in my current job.
Thanks,
Soumya
20 April 2024 5:36pm
Unfortunately , not yet . Still digging into it in my free time. And trying to setup a camera in my bord feeder for a mini conservation project in my back garden :)
20 April 2024 5:41pm
Hi Soumya ,
Interested to know if you are pursuing distance education in ML while at your current job. I would love to hear more about your journey on course specifics and the platform you use to complete the education, and I would love to hear if you have any recommendations based on your experiences.
Thanks,
Savi
Thoughts on RooBadge?
2 April 2024 2:55pm
5 April 2024 12:31pm
Sound deterrents to prevent collisions with Kangaroos in Australia have been sold for many years. None have been shown to work. Whether the Volkswagen device will be any better waits to be seen. Collision data will have to be collected for a while to see if the VW device has any effect on collision rate.
8 April 2024 12:49am
That is an interesting concept, and it would be great if something out there worked. In the meantime, I will try not to drive at dusk 🦘
At one point, I knew the "sonic" animal guards were the most stolen components of cars. You head in, get groceries, and come out, and they are gone. They weren't on the car long enough for me to confirm that would work
20 April 2024 2:40am
Totally agree.
Inititally sceptical until I saw Helena and Graeme were involved.
MJ
4th International workshop on vocal interactivity in-and-between humans, animals, and robots
19 April 2024 3:03pm
WILDLABS AWARDS 2024 – MothBox
15 April 2024 5:06am
18 April 2024 10:39am
Already an update from @hikinghack:
19 April 2024 12:00pm
Yeah we got it about as bare bones as possible for this level of photo resolution and duration in the field. The main costs right now are:
Pi- $80
Pijuice -$75
Battery - $85
64mp Camera - $60
which lands us at $300 already. But we might be able to eliminate that pijuice and have fewer moving parts, and cut 1/4 of our costs! Compared to something like just a single logitech brio camera that sells for $200 and only gets us like 16mp, we are able to make this thing as cheap as we could figure out! :)
19 April 2024 12:54pm
Gotcha, well I look forward to seeing future iterations and following along with your progress!!
IgotU
29 February 2024 2:12pm
15 March 2024 1:01pm
Fantastic Nigel! Bummer to hear that production has stopped, but glad you are getting their remaining boards! I know where to come when I need some!
Cheers,
Rob
22 March 2024 12:32pm
I have couple of good use cases for this model in a conservation project here in Cambodia however limited by lack of funding. Would be happy chat if you are interested.
19 April 2024 12:27pm
I'll find you some. Just organising all of our stock of these.
Technology Trends that Would Drive Business Innovation in 2024
19 April 2024 9:27am
The rapidly evolving digital landscape and its fusion with business operations has given rise to a new buzzword: Digital Transformation. Therefore, there’s been an urgent imperative for organizations to adopt digital technologies to stay competitive. The link provides insights into technological advancements that organizations should embrace
Variety Hour: What do you want to see?
15 September 2022 12:46pm
17 April 2024 7:53pm
Steph, yes, I gathered as much myself, but I still wanted to put it on the agenda. It links to the bigger problem in nature conservation, and especially funding : all projects are required to be effective and successful, scalable, profitable and so on (not to mention the paper trail that applicants need to produce to prove it ). It makes sense from the donors' perspective, because if a project is not at least one of these, then it is a waste of money an how do they explain that to the public and the donors' donors. On the other hand, the IMHO ( H for honest ) over emphasis on this requirement is counterproductive and it does not fit in the world of tech development.
To start with the latter, as we all know, in the world of tech VC and startups, people are very used to the idea that a tech invention is not successful. I've read that if you haven't had two failed startups behind you, you're a better contender with your next one. 9 Out of 10 will fail and the remaining one will more than make up for the loss, is the idea. This way of looking at projects fits very well in this tech oriented forum.
Then the counter productive part : with a funding climate like that, who is going to take risks with tech development for nature conservation? Seriously, anybody reading this: if you raise your hand, please do get in touch, because I am curious how you look at the issue and how you deal with it. Whereas I do agree that nature conservation as a whole needs to be successful, I don't believe that the sponsors' stress on it for individual projects is successful itself. Nature's degradation has developed so far ( call me a pessimist ), that we need to take risks and find out if ( and hope that ) what works for silicon valley can work for nature.
Kudos for your attempt at the 'Technical difficulties'. I didn't know about it. Maybe we ( but I mean you, of course ;-) can tinker with the formula. Ask people to talk about how they overcame problems in some detail, because then it is a success story again. ( They could earn a badge! ) And if the recording is an issue, then don't record, or work on anonymity with temporary accounts, TOR, voice scramblers and the camera off. Maybe people are willing to write about their failures instead of doing a live presentation. That way, one has absolute control over anonymizing individuals and hiding the project from being identified. Little risk of a slip of the tongue.
18 April 2024 12:57pm
Thanks for your thoughts on the importance of sharing more about failure in our unique sector. You bring up some very valid points @Frank_van_der_Most and I think the perspective of 'learning by doing' is quite essential. I've shared below some stories I've covered from our East Africa community that touch on this and the perspective that has emerged has been on learning from these experiences and developing with more insight to solve conservation challenges more effectively. I hope you will find these interesting and useful.
19 April 2024 8:06am
Hi @Frank_van_der_Most,
great point and I will address this in my little talk next week.
Greetings from Austria,
Robin
Involve our young learners in climate change action.
27 March 2024 3:24pm
5 April 2024 4:01pm
Hi Cathy
I can't help personally but on seeing your post reached out to a contact who's previously been involved in the British Cartographic Society in case they had any ideas. Their advice:
"I would suggest that she becomes a member of British Cartographic Society (£45 or so) and then writes for/becomes an editor. Then, she will be able to apply for a funding budget for travel... as long as she also writes about the conference! It's a bit long winded, but I am sure that just being an Editor would be an advantage to her anyway."
I hope that helps (or that you find an easier way to get to the conference :D ) - good luck!
Here's their website -
Membership | BCS
Do you love maps? Work in the cartographic and data visualisation industry? Study or work in an educational setting? Curate maps? By joining the Society, you will become part of an engaging network of people, all with an interest in maps and mapmaking. We have different categories of membership to suit all levels of interest.
BCS6 April 2024 7:50pm
Thank you so much for this!
18 April 2024 11:40pm
I got assistance. super grateful!
Webinar: Bats and Wind Energy
18 April 2024 6:11pm
Catch up with The Variety Hour: April 2024
18 April 2024 2:50pm
Mothbox v3.2 Updates - Solar, HDR, Wifi Hotspots, and More!
18 April 2024 4:58am
Become a WILDLABS group manager!
17 April 2024 7:36pm
Early Warning Systems for Human-Wildlife Conflict, Zoonotic Spillover, and Other Conservation Challenges
17 April 2024 5:43pm
Fauna & Flora: Bridging geospatial data and people together for enhanced conservation management
17 April 2024 11:31am
8 April 2024 9:29am
Thank you Carly!
We have over 60 bats recorded in Zimbabwe