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Marine Conservation / Feed

Bringing together many of our community's tech types like bioacoustics, biologging, drones, remote sensing, machine learning, and more, the Marine Conservation group is a meeting point to begin innovative collaborations and answer difficult questions.

discussion

AI for Conservation!

Hi everybody!I just graduated in artificial intelligence (master's) after a bachelor's in computer engineering. I'm absolutely fascinated by nature and wildlife and I'm trying to...

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Using citizen science image analysis to measure seabird phenology

Our new paper uses data from the citizen science project, Seabird Watch (hosted on the Zooniverse platform; seabirdwatch.org), to measure seabird phenology. Volunteers marked birds in time-lapse images to investigate arrival and departure to/from the breeding grounds.

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discussion

Species ID Needs?

Hi all! New to the WILDLABS space and interested in learning from others about species identification needs in fisheries and wildlife, ranging from monitoring and enforcement to...

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Hello Nadia,

A forensic genetic challenge  exists when DNA is destroyed by processes used in manufacturing of derivative animal products, preventing law enforcement in identification of protected species.  Alternative methods such as lipid profiles or isotope analysis unique to certain species may be possible but require voucher specimens that may or may not be available and methods that have not been tested or peer reviewed. Examples below:

  1. derivative products made from endangered shark squalene (eg. Liver oil capsules).
  2. derivative products made from lion bone and tiger bone (eg. lion bone cake and tiger wine).

    This is a law enforcement issue and would like to discuss possible solutions. 
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discussion

Timelapse Infrared Camera Suggestions

I am researching cameras for my thesis project researching harbor seals. I need a trail camera that can take infrared images in Timelapse mode. Does anyone have any...

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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 ?

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careers

Senior Software Engineer, Skylight

Join the mission to help tackle IUU fishing with cutting-edge tech! The Allan Institute for AI is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to accelerate efforts to make sure those working to restore our ocean have the tools...

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discussion

Jupyter Notebook: Aquatic Computer Vision

Dive Into Underwater Computer Vision Exploration OceanLabs Seychelles is excited to share a Jupyter notebook tailored for those intrigued by the...

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This is quite interesting. Would love to see if we could improve this code using custom models and alternative ways of processing the video stream. 

This definitely seems like the community to do it. I was looking at the thread about wolf detection and it seems like people here are no strangers to image classification. A little overwhelming to be quite honest 😂

While it would be incredible to have a powerful model that was capable of auto-classifying everything right away and storing all the detected creatures & correlated sensor data straight into a database - I wonder if in remote cases where power (and therefore cpu bandwidth), data storage, and network connectivity is at a premium if it would be more valuable to just be able to highlight moments of interest for lab analysis later? OR if you do you have cellular connection, you could download just those moments of interest and not hours and hours of footage? 

Am working on similar AI challenge at the moment. Hoping to translate my workflow to wolves in future if needed. 

We all are little overstretched but it there is no pressing deadlines, it should be possible to explore building efficient model for object detection and looking at suitable hardware for running these model on the edge. 

 

 

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discussion

Recycled & DIY Remote Monitoring Buoy

Hello everybody, My name is Brett Smith, and I wanted share an open source remote monitoring buoy we have been working on in Seychelles as part of our company named "...

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Hello fellow Brett. Cool project. You mentioned a waterseal testing process. Is there documentation on that?

I dont have anything written up but I can tell what parts we used and how we tested.



Its pretty straightforward, we used this M10 Enclosure Vent from Blue Robotics:

 

Along with this nipple adapter:

Then you can use any cheap hand held break pump to connect to your enclosure. You can pump a small vacuum in and make sure the pressure holds.

Here's a tutorial video from blue robotics:

 





Let me know if you have any questions or if I can help out.

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discussion

Looking for a Supervisor/Research Group - ML-driven Marine Biomonitoring

Hi everyone, I am a final year MEng Computing student at Imperial College London interested in improving marine biodiversity monitoring with machine learning.I have...

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Hi Filippo, 

Nice to read your message. Have you thought of contacting anyone in the Bioscience department at UCL? In our group "the People and Nature Lab", a few PhD students (Ben and Jason) are working on ML methods for coral reef monitoring. Might be interesting to reach out to them. List of People at CBER.

Best, Aude

 

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discussion

Open-Source design guide for a low-cost, long-running aquatic stereo camera

Katie Dunkley's project has been getting a heap of attention in the conservation tech community - she very kindly joined Variety Hour to give us a walkthrough of her Open-Source...

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This is awesome - thanks for sharing Stephanie!! We actually were looking around for a low-cost video camera to augment an MPA monitoring project locally and this looks like a really great option!

 

Cheers, Liz

Thank you for sharing! Super interesting, as we don't see many underwater stereo cameras! We also use Blue Robotics components in our projects and have found them reliable and easy to work with. 

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discussion

Hydromoth for coastal & offshore surveying

Hi all! I'm interested in deploying a Hydromoth on an Uncrewed Surface Vehicle (USV) to collect acoustic data for biodiversity analysis, for coastal and offshore marine surveys....

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Hi Sol,

I think your concern is well placed.  The pros typically tow an array of hydrophones, in its simpler configuration it looks like a long fat rubber hose containing maybe a dozen transducers feeding their electrical signals to a recording unit back on the ship.  All this is done to reduce noise from the ship, from waves crashing, and flow noise.  The multiple transducers can also be electronically tuned to be directional so that it can be "pointed" away from a noise source (like the ship).

In your position, I would just try the simplest thing that could work, then fix the problems as they arise.  It could be you may need to be dead in the water while recording.  To address surface noise (slapping waves, wind), you could mount the hydromoth low down on a spar buoy, which you tow into position.

 

Best of luck, it sounds like an interesting project (c:

Hydromoths are great for the price but they do not have the most streamlined housing and audio quality won't be as good as something like a SoundTrap or really any recorder with a proper hydrophone and 16-bit +DAQ system.

If you can afford it, this is an excellent SoundTrap based towed autonomous system NOAA have been using. It might work towed behind an autonomous vehicle

Alternatively, if you can have something inside the vehicle, a simple tape recorder (e.g. Tascam DR40X) and hydrophone on cable  will provide excellent sound quality. You could also use something like a Raspberry Pi with audio focussed ADC hat to record but that would require a bit more programming. Even consider a standard AudioMoth and plug a proper hydrophone into the audio jack - this would still have a 12-bit ADC but would provide better sound quality than a hydromoth (hydrophones are more omnidirectional and there's no air filled causing reflections and attenuation)

If you are considering an external microphone and a towed system, then you would also be in a position to consider a raspberry pi with an external microphone with sbts-aru. Another option:



 

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discussion

Seeking Host Organisations for Travel Scholarship Application

Hi all,I'm Eva, a final year undergraduate studying Joint Honours Biology and Geography at the University of St Andrews.  I've recently joined the WildLabs community in...

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Hi Eva, 

Me and my colleagues run a small NGO based on Yogyakarta in Indonesia, although our projects are spread around the country. One of our active project is working with the movement ecology of Sunda gharials in Berbak-Sembilang National Park. One of the other is for Malayan Giant Turtle conservation using one-plan approach, which we are planning to start in situ phase. We can't give you promise about anything, but are able to be the host organization and would love to talk the opportunity!

Cheers,

Dhanu

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discussion

Wishlist for kit in a field-based Research Station or tech testing space?

Hi wildlabbers!A colleague is looking to crowdsource some advice: what would be on your wishlist for kitting out a field based space for research and tech development?...

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Regine Weckauf over on linkedin

'Little to do with research and tech development, but given how hard it is to attract and retain experienced staff to field based positions, I know it makes a difference how nice the space is. Just because it's the "field", shouldn't mean staff living in basic conditions, regardless of how many times we've been told to see it as a badge of honor. If you have the money, put in nice bathrooms, kitchen, living spaces, and private accommodation. Maybe even a nursery? It creates more local employment opportunities and people genuinely want to visit.'

 

Love the idea for in-house gear/supplies! It can be SOO difficult to travel with batteries, electronics parts with airline regs, country policies, etc. and shipping recorders/trail cams/etc. gets VERY (prohibitively) pricey in some countries with customs and taxes. Would be great to have an in-country place to source that kind of equipment. 

Housing educational resources related to that tech (in the form of people, print materials, computer tutorials) in-house would be similarly awesome. Particularly/especially in local languages.   

Having in-country wet labs as well helps the eDNA/genetics folks, since sample import/export permitting can be (always seems to be?!) a nightmare, so if you can even just do PCR and/or extractions in-country that helps a ton. 

In terms of overall field-station-wishlist - honestly, just the promise of continued funding and staff. Every field station I've been to or worked at is in a constant search for enough money to get through the next month/year, because the funding comes in the establish a station but then not to maintain it long-term. It's not sexy for a wishlist per se, but boy is it over-looked and much-needed. 

@hikinghack from Dinalab would probably have lots of good insights on this! 

My suggestion would probably be a 3D printer and Solder Station with a stock of common components. With those two things you can solve most problems.

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