Engineer in novel technologies and approaches for biodiversity monitoring
26 February 2024 6:12pm
WILDLABS Awards 2024 - Statistics
15 January 2024 5:24pm
26 February 2024 5:03pm
Check out this breakdown of how the WILDLABS Awards 2024 applicants were using tech to address different conservation issues. Special thanks to @Adrien_Pajot for gathering the data!
26 February 2024 5:25pm
Thanks @alexrood for creating this visual!
Needing help from the community: Bioacoustics survey
14 February 2024 9:46am
24 February 2024 7:23pm
Was great to chat with you Sofia and I would encourage others in the Acoustics community to help provide input for Sofia's study!
26 February 2024 8:57am
Thank you so much for your encouraging words! I'm thrilled to hear that you enjoyed our conversation, and I truly appreciate your support in spreading the word about my survey within the Acoustics community. Input from individuals like yourself is incredibly valuable to my study, and I'm eager to gather as much insight as possible. If you know of anyone else who might be interested in participating, please feel free to share the survey link with them. Once again, thank you for your support—it means a lot to me!
Best regards,
Sofia
Voice activated recording devices on satellite collars
18 February 2024 7:01am
24 February 2024 8:38am
I am sure Simon can chime in with exact specifications. I do not have it with me now. The centre distance between the attachment holes at each in end is 20mm wich will fit the standard holes in a collar from Vectronics Aerospace.
Simon posted images of the logger attached to a collar on a spotted Hyeana here: https://twitter.com/chamaillejammes/status/1441657479612542990
To-do now done in South Africa:
— Simon Chamaillé (@chamaillejammes) September 25, 2021
☑️ Being ridiculously proud of achieving data transfer over local GSM and LoRa networks for tracker
☑️ Being ridiculously proud of the way our wehear logger fits on lions and hyaenas. Looking forward to listening to their life. pic.twitter.com/CvgvovVjOp
25 February 2024 9:31am
We are studying muskoxen which are exposed to a polar night of between 3-4 month where the sun does not come over the horizon. On the other hand it also means that it will be continously OVER the horizon during the 3-4 summer months.
We are keeping an eye out for kinetic energy harvesting and there has been some interesting progress recently:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0285930
@M_Stanton , you provide a nice list of uses of animal borne audio. We could add environmental sounds both abiotic and biotic.
We would LOVE to use audio more for ground truthing behavioural states and we would LOVE if the audio recordings could be GPS time synced...
@jared , it sounds interesting with the mentioned increased capabilities of the Iridium system. Can you link to any references for that?
Cheers,
Lars
26 February 2024 12:43am
I heard it through industry chatter but can't find a news release on it yet.
Timelapse Infrared Camera Suggestions
14 February 2024 1:54am
24 February 2024 6:18am
I doubt there is an off the shelf solution. Likely you will have to build one. Again I think the FLIR leptons could be of value here.
@krasi_georgiev you have worked with Leptons before ? Is this something you are able to advise on ?
25 February 2024 1:11pm
Ah yes. I didn’t notice that. Indeed it’s “near infrared”, 850nm lighting.
Camera Traps batteries waste
11 December 2023 5:49am
16 February 2024 2:47am
Thanks for the update @Frank_van_der_Most . I have been curious about the AA Li-Ion/Li-Po batteries and how they perform. The sudden drop in reported voltage will likely be from the internal voltage regulator switching off when the internal cell gets to the low voltage threshold (usually around 3V) to avoid damage to the cell. Looking now at a discharge curve they show a constant 1.5V, then a step down to 1.1V before dropping to zero. I don't know how you can possibly test these externally to know how much energy they have left until you hit the 1.1V step.
18 February 2024 8:28pm
Hi Alistair @alsnothome , see the comments of @Amanda_Matthes at the post here. Basically, it is not easy
23 February 2024 11:11pm
I've used AA rechargeable almost exclusively for many years now. I try to get rechargeables sourced from Japan (Panasonic Eneloop and Fujitsu), but have also used Eveready and EBL. I've used them in Reconyx, Scoutguard, Loreda and other low end cameras. One option you could try if it's in your budget is the solar powered camera traps. You need one set of rechargeables when you first deploy them but don't need to change the batteries afterwards. I'm trialling the Gardepro model that a local supplier sells. I intend to deploy them high up in trees to monitor nest boxes and tree hollows, so regular access to change batteries and SD cards was going to be difficult.
Insect vibrational communication on AudioMoths
23 February 2024 4:16pm
International Day of Forest 2024 Webinar: Forest & Innovation
22 February 2024 2:00pm
SMART Global Congress 2024
22 February 2024 11:00am
WILDLABS Washington DC Meet-Up
21 February 2024 7:33pm
non-invasive technique to apply GPS collars without catching?
14 June 2021 12:01pm
21 February 2024 11:13am
A lorawan based tracker here:
I would expect, but don't know, that a lorawan one should be able to have a longer range and lifetime based on the amount of power needed to reliably transmit the data.
21 February 2024 11:13am
A lorawan based tracker here:
I would expect, but don't know, that a lorawan one should be able to have a longer range and lifetime based on the amount of power needed to reliably transmit the data. Sorry, for some reason this posted twice, can't find a delete button.
21 February 2024 7:27pm
That GNSS chip is indeed tiny!
WILDLABS NYC Networking Event
21 February 2024 7:27pm
22 February 2024 1:40pm
SMART Partnership Director
21 February 2024 4:32pm
Senior Software Engineer, Skylight
21 February 2024 3:44pm
Technical Field Officer
21 February 2024 3:40pm
Scaling biodiversity scoring for supply chains aligned with TNFD
20 February 2024 9:44am
Li-ion rechargeable batteries suddenly drain
2 February 2024 6:13pm
15 February 2024 9:26am
Hi Frank,
Yes, I agree. There is a halfway-house solution if you take a look at the Energizer Ultimate Lithium range of batteries. They have superior life to alkaline batteries (3.5Ah in a single AA cell), though they are of course still one-time use. They would also work a little better with your battery monitor since they have a graceful degradation between 1.8V down to 1.5V, but then they fall off a cliff ;-)
16 February 2024 1:00pm
A multi meter would probably not be enough, unless you have a very fancy one. To get the energy use, you need to be able to integrate the current drawn over time. Something like this: Otii Arc Pro
I don't know how much you paid for these, but Amazon Basics has a line of rechargeable AA batteries, including a high capacity version which can store 2400 mAh which is a little more than the ones you're using. (I've seen even more capacity with other manufacturers.)
You might also want to consider avoiding batteries with USB ports in the future. It seems to me like just an additional thing that can break, especially if moisture could be an issue.
18 February 2024 8:20pm
Thanks for the link, Amanda. The price of $900 is a bit too steep for me, but at least I now know a bit better what you meant with a power analyser.
I can't remember either what I paid for the batteries, but I try to avoid buying stuff from mr. Bezos, because he is rich enough as far as I am concerned.
The moisture issue slipped my mind when I was in Europe. As far as I remember, I liked the usb ports because I bought the batteries as a test and I didn't want to buy a separate charger, as I thought one needed one designed for Li-ion batteries. The usb ports made that possible.
WiCT active?
16 January 2024 9:14am
26 January 2024 2:17pm
Hi Paola! It's Meredith (former Pringle lab in Gorongosa) - great to see you here! Would love to touch base about the WiCT network and programming - we ran a similar programme to this in Gorongosa two years ago and are gearing up for another women's session in Gorongosa this August. It would be great to involve you if you're interested?
16 February 2024 1:30pm
Hi Meredith! let's definitely chat. my tel is +258-84-304-8602
18 February 2024 4:22pm
Super, I'll be in touch soon!
Tools for automating image augmentation
26 January 2024 2:33pm
16 February 2024 7:42am
Hi @arky !
Thanks for your reply.
I am running into pytorch/torchvision incompatibility issues when trying to run your script.
Which versions are you using?
Best regards,
Lars
18 February 2024 11:05am
@Lars_Holst_Hansen Here is the information you requested. Also run Yolov8 in multiple remote environments without any issues. Perhaps you'll need to use a virtual environment (venv et al) or conda to remedy incompatibility issues.
$ yolo checks
Ultralytics YOLOv8.1.4 🚀 Python-3.10.12 torch-1.13.1+cu117 CUDA:0 (Quadro T2000, 3904MiB)
Setup complete ✅ (16 CPUs, 62.5 GB RAM, 465.0/467.9 GB disk)
OS Linux-6.5.0-17-generic-x86_64-with-glibc2.35
Environment Linux
Python 3.10.12
Install pip
RAM 62.54 GB
CPU Intel Core(TM) i7-10875H 2.30GHz
CUDA 11.7
matplotlib ✅ 3.5.1>=3.3.0
numpy ✅ 1.26.3>=1.22.2
opencv-python ✅ 4.7.0.72>=4.6.0
pillow ✅ 10.2.0>=7.1.2
pyyaml ✅ 6.0.1>=5.3.1
requests ✅ 2.31.0>=2.23.0
scipy ✅ 1.11.4>=1.4.1
torch ✅ 1.13.1>=1.8.0
torchvision ✅ 0.14.1>=0.9.0
tqdm ✅ 4.66.1>=4.64.0
psutil ✅ 5.9.8
py-cpuinfo ✅ 9.0.0
thop ✅ 0.1.1-2209072238>=0.1.1
pandas ✅ 1.5.3>=1.1.4
seaborn ✅ 0.12.2>=0.11.0
18 February 2024 11:18am
Perfect thanks! I am still a novice using Python but my wife can help me!
Seeking Advice on Thermal Drones for Night-Time Elephant Observation
25 December 2023 9:53am
13 February 2024 8:39am
Hi Nilaksha (and everyone else),
I have been looking at the application of thermal to improve the automated detection through RGB imagery. One of the large drawbacks of thermal is the lower resolution. This is impart cost but also down to basic physics, IR light has a much longer wavelength and therefore a sensor can't have as many 'pixels' on it compared to an RGB sensor. This implies that you either need a thermal camera lens with a longer focal length, which reduces the area you cover, or you need to fly much lower. The drawback of the latter is you cover much less ground per unit of time/battery and you have the potential of disturbing the animals.
I know that DJI have recently released a starlight camera combined with thermal (DJI Enterprise Zenmuse H20N). It looks very impressive but I have not yet managed to test it. Being self-funded as well I have opted for hiring in a drone company to fly for me with the state of the art equipment rather than buying and flying myself.
Hope that helps and keen to hear how you get on!
16 February 2024 8:23am
@PaulS Thank you. It sounds great. I'll have a look and get back.
16 February 2024 8:34am
@PaulAllin Thanks for your valuable insights. Zenmuse H20N seems to be very powerful and useful in this case. However, I'm looking for a more affordable option for a self-funded research.
Data Scientist at United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
15 February 2024 5:22pm
Mothbox + Mothbeam Update: 4
31 January 2024 7:09pm
15 February 2024 4:49pm
We did some more testing with the Mothbeam in the forest. It's the height of dry season right now, so not many moths came out, but the mothbeam shined super bright and attracted a whole bunch of really tiny things that swarmed a lot
and some nocturnal bees
you could also see the mothbeam's aura from far away in the forest! so that was impressive!
I also tested out attaching a 12V USB booster cable to the Mothbeam, and it works
nice! So you can attach regular USB 5V battery packs to the mothbeam as well!
3x Ai 4 Conservation Job Roles (UK)
15 February 2024 3:28pm
Workshop: Advances in eDNA for monitoring and ecological studies of marine mammals
14 February 2024 7:25pm
Contrasting strengths of eDNA and electrofishing compared to historic records for assessing fish community diversity and composition
14 February 2024 7:24pm
This study investigated the accuracy of eDNA and electrofishing as alternative methods for assessing diversity.
Exploring an ethical reflection tool for animal-focused tech (Survey)
13 February 2024 8:22pm
New DNA tests achieve first convictions for raptor thefts
13 February 2024 7:12pm
Gender Representation in the WILDLABS Awards 2024 Submissions
13 February 2024 5:37pm
14 February 2024 1:37pm
21 March 2024 9:59am
Data Logger Suggestions
31 January 2024 1:42pm
10 February 2024 2:19am
Hi Andrea,
The OpenLog Artemis might be an option. I haven't used one of these yet, but its what I immediately thought of. Built in real time clock and IMU that records to microSD. It has four 14-bit ADCs and I2C connectors for the 'Qwiic' or 'grove' sensor boards. I'm not sure if it has programmable on/off cycles with the clock but you may find an existing project that does this.
13 February 2024 4:29pm
Thank you for the help!
Funded PhD Opportunity: Moose Acoustics at the University of New Hampshire
13 February 2024 1:21pm
14 February 2024 3:29pm
Gender representation in WILDLABS Awards 2024
@alexrood and I dived into WILDLABS Awards data to study women representation.
Here are the results and some of them are really compelling: