With experts across the WILDLABS community working with every type of technology and in every imaginable environment, our platform is a great place to find advice and resources on choosing what tools are right for your conservation project. Whether you're in the market to try a new camera trap model, want to experiment with drones for the first time, or need help weighing the pros and cons of data management tools, there's someone in the WILDLABS community who can help you make a smart and informed choice!
The Community Base is our general gathering group. It's the place where we cover more general, big picture topics in conservation technology - ones that don't fit neatly into our other groups. If you don't know where to post something, just post it in this group. Our moderators will move it if needed!
At our Community Base, you'll find updates from the WILDLABS team on upcoming events and opportunities, and have the chance to shape our programs and platform with your opinions. And most importantly, the Community Base is also home to our Welcome to WILDLABS thread, the best place to introduce yourself to us and the community. Stop by and tell us what you're working on!
Whether you're new to WILDLABS and want to know where to begin, or you're a longtime member looking for a handy bank of resources, our Getting Started on WILDLABS thread will be your one-stop guide to getting the most out of our platform.
Want to find out more about WILDLABS? Check out our recent community call:
Header image: Ana Verahrami/Elephant Listening Project
Group curators
- @StephODonnell
- | She / Her
WILDLABS & Fauna & Flora
I'm the Executive Manager at WILDLABS.
- 152 Resources
- 668 Discussions
- 30 Groups
- @TaliaSpeaker
- | She/her
WILDLABS & World Wide Fund for Nature/ World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
I'm the WILDLABS Research Specialist at WWF-US
- 13 Resources
- 56 Discussions
- 24 Groups
- @EllieW
- | She/Her
- 64 Resources
- 124 Discussions
- 14 Groups
- @dterlip
- | He/Him
Career technologist looking to move into the conservation space
- 0 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 3 Groups
- @Sarvagya
- | He/Him
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 7 Groups
- @leonardoscarpa
- | He/His
I'm Leonardo, I'm a biologist, and I'm passionate about movement ecology. Another of my hobbies is GIS. I have a master's degree in this topic, which I complement with the use of technology such as drones, camera traps and acoustic receivers
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 10 Groups
Software engineer
- 0 Resources
- 3 Discussions
- 3 Groups
- @womble
- | he/him
AI Researcher, mostly NLP, with 30+ years experience. Recently consulted for a company ding drone image analysis and Google Cloud
- 0 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 6 Groups
- @Thomas_Luypaert
- | He/him
Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU)
Ecological monitoring enthusiast with a focus on ecological and conservation research
- 1 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 7 Groups
Technologist and Visual storyteller focusing on social, conservations issues.
- 0 Resources
- 31 Discussions
- 16 Groups
- @Hansa
- | He/Him
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 6 Groups
- 2 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 2 Groups
Heading up comms for a conservation agency based in the United Arab Emirates
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 6 Groups
- @Edonga
- | He/His
Paul Edonga is from the Indigenous Pastoralist Tribes of Northern Kenya. A seasoned Leader in indigenous-led conservation of Endangered Beisa Oryx, African Small Antelopes their habitats & Dryland Forests. He's the founder of Save Beisa Oryx Community Resilience Trust-SBOC
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 6 Groups
Purdue University
- 8 Resources
- 48 Discussions
- 5 Groups
The Conservation Technology Laboratory within the Population Sustainability department is seeking two fellows for summer 2024.
9 January 2024
With the support of Women in Conservation Technology (Kenya) and Arm, I had a chance to work with Kijabe Environment Volunteers in Kikuyu Escarpment Forest. This was an opportunity to channel my passion for the...
1 December 2023
Funding
With $60,000, $30,000, and $10,000 grants available for 14 outstanding projects, the support of engineering and technology talent from Arm (the leading semiconductor design company), and access to the world’s biggest...
1 December 2023
More information for those interested in our newly launched WILDLABS Awards, supporting 14 outstanding conservation technology projects with $60,000, $30,000, and $10,000 grants. Read carefully ahead of submitting your...
1 December 2023
Careers
NSERC-CREATE graduate programs (LEADS & LINK-D) on the theme of scientific leadership for global sustainability in the digital age.
27 November 2023
Gain communication skills while translating global freshwater conservation issues into a local context.
27 November 2023
TagRanger® is a state-of-the-art wildlife finding, monitoring and tracking solution for research, conservation and environmental professionals. With superior configurability for logging data, reporting location and...
23 November 2023
WILDLABS just released our three-year trends report sharing insights into how perceptions and engagement with technology for biodiversity and conservation are evolving. Take the 2023 survey and share it widely to help...
15 November 2023
OUT NOW: Our three-year trends report delivers the first global assessment tracking evolving perceptions and engagement in the tech for biodiversity and conservation space. Here are five things we found.
15 November 2023
Article
WILDLABS journeyed through the most significant climate event in Africa this year and delivered a Women in Conservation Technology presentation. Esther Githinji, our East Africa Hub Facilitator discovered that although...
27 October 2023
Listen in to our newest podcast for a behind-the-scenes breakdown with your tech4nature insiders of the latest events, conversations, and news happening in the conservation space.
27 October 2023
June 2024
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August 2024
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Hi all,I work at Planet, where we image all of Earth’s landmass every day, and make global change visible, accessible and actionable. Part of my daily work is to lead... |
+254
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Community Base | 7 hours 51 minutes ago | |
Thanks for your insights Kim! |
+8
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Community Base | 9 hours 3 minutes ago | |
Thank you so much Alex! |
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Community Base | 1 day 5 hours ago | |
Building on Frank's comments, I'd also think about including some conversation about the ethical use of technology - Trishant's talk at Tech Tutors a little while ago sparked a... |
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Community Base, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Early Career | 2 days 8 hours ago | |
We'll be presenting Wednesday morning as part of session 10.1b on "Integrating earth observations and biological tools in ecology and evolution to cogenerate knowledge towards... |
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Community Base, Biologging | 1 week 2 days ago | |
I noticed the site being annoyingly slow some time last week. Thank you for clearing that up, for finding the cause and solving the issue.I'm not claiming deep knowledge on AI,... |
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Community Base | 4 weeks 2 days ago | |
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,... |
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Early Career, East Africa Community, Community Base | 1 month 1 week ago | |
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... |
+12
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Community Base, Early Career | 1 month 1 week ago | |
Totally agree.Inititally sceptical until I saw Helena and Graeme were involved.MJ |
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Acoustics, Citizen Science, Community Base, Human-Wildlife Conflict | 1 month 1 week ago | |
Hi @Frank_van_der_Most,great point and I will address this in my little talk next week.Greetings from Austria,Robin |
+11
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Community Base | 1 month 1 week ago | |
I got assistance. super grateful! |
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Climate Change, Community Base, East Africa Community, Conservation Tech Training and Education | 1 month 1 week ago | |
Awesome, thanks for the summary! |
+8
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Protected Area Management Tools, Community Base | 2 months 1 week ago |
NSF Activate Fellowship
26 September 2022 7:22pm
New Platform Help: How do I...?
6 May 2022 9:36am
7 September 2022 4:20pm
Another potential thing to add - maybe getting more specific than country on location? Like adding state/province/city? To make the member directory searchable on a smaller geographic scale. I've seen lots of posts recently on Bioacoustics Stack Exchange, AI for Conservation Slack, & others looking for people based in a particular region or city and it got me thinking about how the WILDLABS member directory could provide that. Just a thought!
23 September 2022 3:36pm
Thanks Carly! I'll pop this on the list of features to discuss with developers. Putting broader regions on the existing list might be possible. It could also be useful to get more specific but it might require re-working how the filter works or adding more filters. Maybe at some stage we could have a big wildlabs member map (although that might potentially lead to some data privacy issues).
In the meantime some people put their city in their bio, which is searchable on the members section.
WILDLABS Digest: 23 September 2022
23 September 2022 12:05pm
Our latest WILDLABS Community digest has just hit inboxes! Don't have time to keep up with everything that's happening in the conservation tech world? This email is for you!
Workshop: Building UK Partnerships for Conservation Technology
22 September 2022 3:02pm
Catch Up with The Variety Hour: November 2022
22 September 2022 2:12pm
Catch Up with the Variety Hour: October 2022
22 September 2022 1:59pm
WILDLABS Journal Club
15 September 2022 11:42am
15 September 2022 12:17pm
Ah Journal club - this was a lot of fun but a little chaotic. We've been wondering if we should bring it back with a slightly different format. ie we all agree on a paper to read before rather than bringing a mix of things to present. What does everyone think? Is anyone else keen? Is there a format you'd suggest we use?
15 September 2022 3:49pm
I have been waiting for journal club to come back!! 10000% down.
I agree with @StephODonnell, would love it to come back!!! And now that variety hour is happening, that's more of the "mix of things" that she mentioned anyways so I think that new format would be great.
Closing soon: WILDLABS State of Conservation Tech Survey 2022
14 September 2022 12:42am
#Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge Countdown
8 September 2022 11:03pm
Join the #Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge!
8 September 2022 10:21pm
Starting today: Join the 7th annual #Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge!
6 September 2022 10:06am
7 September 2022 8:37pm
Survey for Doctoral Research on Poaching in Protected Areas
29 August 2022 10:43pm
Catch Up with the WILDLABS Variety Hour: August 2022
10 August 2022 11:44am
Survey: The role and applicability of block-chain technology in conservation survey
3 August 2022 3:28pm
Any results coming out of this survey that you would like to share?
What are your biggest sustainability challenges and issues in your work?
27 June 2022 4:18pm
29 June 2022 12:39am
Hey all!
I mentioned that on Friday, we'd update this post with all the sustainability conversations happening across our platform, but I wanted to flag this great Twitter thread right now in case anyone wants to jump in! Lots of interesting conversation about challenges with transporting batteries to field sites on planes and using rechargeable batteries in the comments.
Check it out here:
7 July 2022 12:19pm
Hi David,
Yes and no. A lot of organizations have realized that we also need to talk about co-benefits in such projects, especially when it comes to biodiversity. So, it's definitely not only about carbon anymore. however, most players struggle on how to measure and communicate biodiversity impacts. At WWF, we partnered for instance with Restor, who is trying to incorporating biodiversity
1 August 2022 5:57pm
During a volunteer project, I ran into some stupefying experiences with camera traps, one of those 'corner stones', it seems, of nature conservation research.
Everybody who works with camera traps knows it, but it was new to me, and I think it can't hurt to point out the glaringly obvious here:
They consume no less than 8 AA batteries per run. I've seen a project description boasting the use of 200 camera traps if I remember correctly. That is 1600 batteries and I sure hope they are able to retrieve every single one of them.
Secondly, the manual of the camera trap that I had purchased explicitly discouraged the use of rechargeable batteries. I tried it anyways and indeed, the camera seems to run shorter on them. Tip to myself for next time : download and read the manual first before purchasing.
Thirdly, in the country where I did the volunteer project it was completely unclear if there was a battery recycling system in place. It seemed to depend on the town and private initiative. The question now is to which extent camera traps for nature conservation are used in countries with a proper recycling system?
Fourthly, the project had a couple of camera traps that 'didn't work'. A few of these just needed some spraying with contact spray helped ( a whole different topic, but what is the environmental impact of contact spray? Does that weigh up to replacing the electronics? ). A few others seemed to suffer from the same problem. They contain a button cell that seems to power the clock and perhaps some other functions when the AA batteries are lacking. This button cell had gone bad, that is, rusted away. In the traps that I checked, the button cell was soldered to the electronics board. I had no means to replace them, so I do not know for sure that the faulty cell was the source of the problem. This really is a disclaimer, the camera traps seemed pretty old, and other things might caused the malfunction.
I found only one online source about these button cells in camera traps. It is listed below.
At least it indicates that this happens more often and that the cell is probably not rechargeable. If so, I find it a major design flaw. Would it not be better to make the button cells replaceable and /or rechargeable? Or do without them completely?
See
SOLVED: Identify faulty soldered PCB Lithium button cell replacement battery - Miscellaneous Electronics
Hi @steveout , If the board is still working try measuring the voltage on the battery when power is connected to the board or disconnect the battery from the board and measure the voltage on the board at the battery connections to get the o/c voltage reading This should give you a good idea as to... - Miscellaneous Electronics
iFixit
Get to Know WILDBEAR Awardee Alyssa Bohart
27 July 2022 10:12pm
Equipment Swap Meet/Giveaways
17 April 2019 2:28pm
25 October 2019 9:43pm
Hi Carl,
No problem and happy to go with the name you are most comfortable with. Looking forward to saying hi at the virtual meetup!
Cheers,
Rob
1 July 2022 7:48pm
Hi all!
Just wanted to drop in and share that we're having a lot of discussions around sustainability right now, and we're thinking about how the conservation tech community can recycle old tools in sustainable ways. Swaps and exchanges feel like they fit perfectly into that conversation!
If any of you would like to drop into this discussion thread on practical steps toward sustainability and share your experiences with swapping tools, we'd love to hear from you!
Current and future steps toward sustainability in conservation tech? | WILDLABS
We’re exploring big questions in conservation tech sustainability as we build our next editorial series focusing on that very subject. As a global community focusing on creating positive impact in conservation, we see a huge opportunity to work together on lessening any negative impacts on the environment! What steps do you already take to make your conservation tech work more sustainable? (Ex: Recycling batteries, trading, repairing, or donating older equipment, consciously planning travel to the field to reduce your carbon footprint, etc.) Do you have practical steps in mind that we could take together to make our field more sustainable? And just as importantly, what “blue-sky” big ideas should our community reach for in terms of sustainability?We'd love to hear more from our growing climate change community as this discussion grows, so please chime in with your thoughts!
wildlabsnet26 July 2022 6:40pm
Hi all doing some spring cleaning. Just pay shipping.
I have:
-20 new Taoglas FXUB63 Ultra Wide Band Antenna 698-3000MHz we don't need. The ones that come with Boron's.
FXUB63.54.0150C | DigiKey Electronics
Order today, ships today. FXUB63.54.0150C – 829MHz, 1.575GHz, 1.85GHz, 1.9625GHz, 2.45GHz, 2.595GHz LTE, ISM, Wi-Fi Flat Patch RF Antenna 698MHz ~ 960MHz, 1.71GHz ~ 1.99GHz, 1.755GHz ~ 2.17GHz, 2.4GHz ~ 2.5GHz, 2.5GHz ~ 2.69GHz 4.5dBi, 2.33dBi, 4.6dBi, 4.7dBi, 4.4dBi, 4dBi IPEX MHF4L Adhesive from Taoglas Limited. Pricing and Availability on millions of electronic components from Digi-Key Electronics.
DigiKey Electronics-90 Phoenix Contact TERM BLK 4P SIDE ENT 5.08MM PCB
1017505 | DigiKey Electronics
Order today, ships today. 1017505 – 4 Position Wire to Board Terminal Block Horizontal with Board 0.200" (5.08mm) Through Hole from Phoenix Contact. Pricing and Availability on millions of electronic components from Digi-Key Electronics.
DigiKey Electronics-45 Omron RELAY GEN PURPOSE SPST 10A 12V, G5LE-1A DC12
We have so much stuff we'll never use. Will post more as I sort through it. If you need something in particular let me know. Might get lucky.
If by chance someone knows where I could find some ATSAMD21G18A-MFT or similar let me know!
Introducing WILDBEAR Awardee Alyssa Bohart
22 July 2022 12:27am
Tech Tutors East Africa: Call for Topics and Speakers
19 July 2022 9:28am
19 July 2022 11:41am
Definitely second doing one on SMART! It's been asked about before a number of times in other virtual events so I think the need/want is for sure there.
19 July 2022 12:20pm
100%! Also heard many asking about SMART Connect & Mobile, and their integration with other software.
Thank you for your input :)
Call for Abstracts for #AGU22 Fall Meeting: Applications of Earth Observations for Addressing Environmental and Development Challenges in Africa
18 July 2022 6:43am
Conservation Data Coordinator
15 July 2022 11:02am
Writing Bootcamp: Ask the WILDLABS Editor
6 July 2022 8:29pm
7 July 2022 12:10am
Awesome! We were wondering about writing on WildLabs now that you can publish articles to specific topics. My writing skills are a bit rusty too. Looking forward to the article series :)
14 July 2022 3:11am
Thanks Akiba, hope you liked the series and found it helpful! Can't wait to see what you share! If you ever need someone to help brainstorm ideas on how to approach specific topics, drop in here anytime!
Service Designer
13 July 2022 9:05am
Writing Bootcamp: Shaping Your Story
7 July 2022 10:10pm
Writing Bootcamp: Questions for Writers
6 July 2022 10:47pm
4 October 2023 6:39pm
Knowing Nature: New conservation technologies & knowledge systems to support the SDGs and post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework
5 July 2022 8:46pm
New Platform Help: Troubleshooting & bugs
6 May 2022 9:21am
5 July 2022 6:40am
I have had two this week. Is there a way to report/ block them?
Messages have started with "Hello Darling" so do not think they are conservation orientated
5 July 2022 9:39am
Okay great - thanks for flagging this. It's helpful to know it didn't just come to our team's accounts - we also got the same message and blocked the account immediately. Til now our spam filiters have working well blocking accounts like this at the registration stage, but we're going to change some things to prevent abuse of the DM system. We're having a meeting to finalise some decisions on it this morning - will report back after.
Thanks!
Steph
5 July 2022 11:28am
Quick report on what we're doing on the technical side:
First of all, so sorry that this has happened. We worked hard on spam prevention on the registration system and after lots of effort using many different methods, managed to cut that down to zero or almost zero. At least for automated "bot" accounts.
But the user account involved in this seems to have got by that and then used our bespoke messaging system to spam recently logged in users. From the facts that
- it targeted recently logged in users (who appear in that order on the member directory)
- the messages are spaced apart in time in a way that a robot would probably not do
I suspect this is a manual copy-paste spammer.
We're working on reporting tools and other ways to prevent this but for now we've changed the system so that messages from blocked users will no longer be shown in member inboxes.
Please continue to report spam issues to the WILDLABS team until we work out further solutions for reporting.
Any suggestions from other platforms you use on which reporting tools you find the most helpful will also be much appreciated. We'd love to fix this in a way that helps with any other platform abuse issues that might come up in the future as the community grows.
Writing Bootcamp: What content type fits my story?
1 July 2022 10:19pm
Friday Check In (+ Mid-year reflection prompts)
1 July 2022 11:32am
Announcing Our Upcoming Sustainability Series
30 June 2022 8:54pm
1 September 2022 8:57pm
Ha, I literally said the same thing after posting my last link - 280 is so much less than you think. We're going to increase it a bit. We are still going to keep the editing tools minimal, that was purposeful. We don't want every type of post to behave exactly the same as it gets confusing. Links are intended to be straightfoward and quick, a link with a short description or commentary. Anything else you should be starting a proper discussion or creating a longer post.