Although they cover over 70% of our planet, only 0.6% of the world oceans are protected. It is estimated that we only know about 1 in 10 species in the ocean, which is unsurprising given that 90% of the ocean is more than half a mile deep and still remains largely unexplored. How might technology help us discover, understand and protect the vulnerable ecosystems below the waterline?
Marine Conservation is a fast-growing group in the WILDLABS community, capturing a wide variety of tech expertise within its member base, including those working with bioacoustic gear and hydrophones, AUVs and drones, sensors, machine learning, and more. By bringing together WILDLABS members from so many areas of conservation tech, the Marine Conservation group is the perfect place to collaborate on big, complex issues like marine biodiversity monitoring, coral reef health, plastic pollution, and sustainability.
The Marine Conservation group forum is also your place to chat about and solve the challenges unique to using conservation technology in marine environments. Whether you're struggling with deep-sea connectivity or salt water impacting gear longevity, or looking for remote solutions for long-term reef monitoring or biologging data collection, this group wants to help you explore the possibilities!
Check out some of the key marine conservation tech resources, conversations, and virtual events from across the WILDLABS platform:
Tutorials and Talks to Watch on Demand:
- Virtual Meetups: Developing cost-effective, open-source marine megafauna tracking, Jake Levenson
- Tech Tutors: How do I use open source remote sensing data to monitor fishing?, Max Schofield
- Virtual Meetups: eDNA for Aquatic Biodiversity, Alice Valentini
Case Studies, Tools, Research, and News:
- Southern Right Whales & Genome and Satellite Technology, Emma Carroll | eDNA & genomics, satellite data, biodiversity monitoring, climate change
- Building Experts Into AI, Whale Seeker | Machine learning, marine conservation, AI ethics
- Using AIS Data to Investigate the World’s Fishing Ports, Max Schofield | Remote sensing, data visualisation, fishing monitoring
- Small-scale fisheries and tech resources, Dan Steadman | Fishery monitoring, webinars, best practices
- Press Release: BAS Giant Iceberg Mission, British Antarctic Survey | Climate change, AUVs, remote sensing
- Case Study: Thermal imaging, drones, and loggerhead sea turtles, Megan Ossmann | FLIR, Duo Pro R camera, drones
- eDNA sampling to detect invasive snails in shipping ballast water, Gavin Shelton | Invasive species, eDNA, shipping
- Sustainable Fishing Challenges: Fish Catch Monitoring, Dan Steadman | Biologging, sensors, fishing monitoring
Conversations and Questions:
- Satellite tags for marine turtle recommendations | Alasdair Davies
- Calling all hydrophone users! | Team Open Acoustic Devices
- How difficult is it to build a buoy and constrain it in place? | Lindy Knowles
- Methods to detect Derelict Fishing Gear | Nandini Mehrotra
- Drone Mapping for Algal Blooms? | Harold Tay
- Minimising habitat impact of trawling gear | Dan Steadman
- Estimating carbon from 3d models of mangroves | Mark Brown
- Can we detect gillnets in turbid water? | Aurélie Shapiro
- New low cost DIY temperature loggers for reef monitoring | Harold Tay
- Machine learning to detect fish bomb blasts | Jamie Macaulay
Header Image: Emma Vogel
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Software developer with a keen interest in ornithology, wildlife, and nature conservation.
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PhD Student at the Post Graduate Programme in Animal Biology at Federal University of Pernambuco. Biologist at the National Centre of Research and Conservation of Aquatic Mammals (ICMBio/CMA).
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Passionate and curious about nature and its diversity, I seek to learn more about conservation, new technologies, and the unknown and infinite environmental world.
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WILDLABS
I'm the Community Manager at WILDLABS
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I am a recently graduated Computer Scientist and Mathematician passionate about animals and nature.
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I studied sustainability and worked in the international dev sector, I have tech skills in UX, data-analytics and graph modelling, can prototype web services and want to help in nature conservation.
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Conservation scientist and ecologist
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Suzanne’s drive to protect the natural world led her to graduate school at Caltech. She is a Computing and Mathematical Sciences PhD student, advised by Pietro Perona. Her interests include leveraging machine learning and computer vision techniques to solve ecological problems.
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Article
First known baited underwater video match of an individual white shark, based on facial scars and other unique features White shark undertakes 1,100-mile (1800-km) transboundary swim from South Africa to Mozambique
25 October 2022
1
Careers
Shark Lab Data Analyst
Carly Batist
This position (at California State University, Long Beach) provides data management & analysis support to Shark Lab research operations including shark tagging, active tracking, receiver data, AUV & UAV data...
24 October 2022
Article
Oregon State University researchers have developed a new satellite tag that allows them to better track whales’ behavior, including previously unobservable feeding events during dives.
4 October 2022
1
Article
The device could help scientists explore unknown regions of the ocean, track pollution, or monitor the effects of climate change.
26 September 2022
Careers
Map of Life (MOL) and the Yale Center for Biodiversity and Global Change are seeking a Software Engineer who is interested in developing new technologies to support effective global biodiversity education, monitoring,...
26 September 2022
1
Funding
HeroX Challenge: Better Call Trawl
NASA Tournament Lab
Explore BOEM data, build analytic tools, and recommend solutions for sea turtle relocation trawling approaches to reduce incidental risk. Prize: $40,000
21 September 2022
Careers
Tenure track position in Marine Biology
12 September 2022
Careers
Postdoc: Noise Impacts on Marine Animals
Carly Batist
Mystic Aquarium is seeking a Postdoctoral Investigator (PDI) to address noise impacts on aquatic species, particularly beluga whales, seals and turtles. This project will develop & carry out research to address...
1 September 2022
1
Careers
Seeking interested individuals with qualifications and educational background and experience in marine species biology/ecology (marine mammals, sea turtles, fish, seabirds, etc.); with skills in applied scientific study...
31 August 2022
1
Careers
We are looking for an international consultant to develop and implement the SMART System for São Tomé and Principe terrestrial and marine ecosystems in Portuguese
31 August 2022
Careers
Acoustics Modeler & Analyst, Marine Acoustics Inc
Stephanie O'Donnell
Marine Acoustics, Inc. (MAI) is seeking an Acoustic Modeler and Analyst to assist us in the analysis of underwater acoustic system performance and the effect underwater acoustic transmissions have on the marine...
30 August 2022
Careers
Opportunity: Commercial Director
Ellie Warren
SafetyNet Technologies is seeking a new Commercial Director to help them scale up their conservation tech hardware product development.
12 August 2022
November 2022
| Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hey all!I'm looking for image datasets of Indo-Pacific fish species (Red Sea, if I'm being specific) for detection/classification.... |
|
Marine Conservation | 1 week 4 days ago | |
| Hi,If this is still relevant, you can try reaching out to the Belmaker lab, they do BRUV surveys in the eastern Mediterranean and have hours of video, some of it I believe is... |
|
AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Data management and processing tools , Marine Conservation | 1 month 1 week ago | |
| @Andrew_Hill I wonder if you could let us know more about the time keeping difference btw the regular AudioMoth and the HydroMoth (which is said to do better)? |
|
Acoustic Monitoring, Marine Conservation | 4 months ago | |
| Hello,The hydrophone_survey_results.pdf file is not opening. Is the link still working? I would be keen to see it. Thank you. |
|
Marine Conservation | 5 months ago | |
| If you're looking to identify collaborators - probably lots of organizations listed in the Conservation Tech Directory would be interested (quick prelim search yields orgs like... |
|
Marine Conservation, Open Source Solutions | 5 months 1 week ago | |
| Fascinating article, combining machine learning and acoustical signals to correlate coral reef health.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science... |
|
Acoustic Monitoring, AI for Conservation, Marine Conservation | 6 months ago | |
| Hi @cosmicspittle ! Thank you for your interest to our technology! I sent you a private message to continue the discussion. |
|
Marine Conservation | 11 months 3 weeks ago | |
| Hi Wildlabbers, This week's Tech Tutor Jamie MacAulay is talking about how to use and analyze large acoustic data using... |
|
Acoustic Monitoring, AI for Conservation, Marine Conservation | 1 year 1 month ago | |
| Would certainly be cool to see a tutorial on this! Looking forward to that! |
|
Marine Conservation, Sensors | 1 year 2 months ago | |
| Materials Engineer at Running Tide - https://jobs.lever.co/runningtide/f1f38773-1369-4a5c-a6ae-ce952a10ad3c Electrical Engineer at... |
|
Marine Conservation | 1 year 3 months ago | |
| Hi Mauman. Did you have a specific application in mind? There are quite a few IoT systems but they all need to be pieced together. If there's a specific application... |
|
Marine Conservation | 1 year 5 months ago | |
| "On a side note, I've discovered it's really hard to say "I'm interested in small buoys" without creating awkward silence in a room. "... |
|
Marine Conservation | 1 year 11 months ago |
Image datasets of Indo-Pacific fish species
19 November 2022 6:57pm
Underwater Camera Trap Video Confirms 1,100-Mile (1800-km) Swim of Tagged Great White Shark
WCS
25 October 2022 10:20am
Shark Lab Data Analyst
24 October 2022 7:12pm
Underwater Fish Datasets from the Mediterranean
15 August 2022 11:45pm
26 September 2022 9:32pm
Not sure if audio data would be of any use to you, but if so FishSounds has some - I just tried their search function and there is a location tag for 'Mediterranean & Black Sea'.
You might try reaching out to the folks at Name that Fish, Innovasea, or perhaps an entity on the Fisheries Tech list would have Mediterranean stuff?
21 October 2022 7:52am
Hi,
If this is still relevant, you can try reaching out to the Belmaker lab, they do BRUV surveys in the eastern Mediterranean and have hours of video, some of it I believe is annotated. Particularly, Shahar might be helpful, he's the PhD student running point on the project.
New paper: Benthic animal-borne sensors & citizen science combine to validate ocean modelling
10 October 2022 4:15pm
"We develop the use of benthic species as animal oceanographers by combining archival (depth, temperature) data from animal-borne tags, passive acoustic telemetry & citizen-science mark-recapture records for the flapper skate in Scotland."
Multi-day workshop: Machine Learning Advances for Marine Acoustics & Imagery Data
4 October 2022 5:20pm
Long-term tracking of whale feeding behavior via satellite now possible with new tag
4 October 2022 5:20pm
Conservation leadership: Learning
4 October 2022 2:29pm
ONLINE COURSE: Monitoring and Evaluation for Wildlife Conservation
4 October 2022 2:04pm
ONLINE COURSE: Project Management for Wildlife Conservation
4 October 2022 2:00pm
MIT engineers build a battery-free, wireless underwater camera
26 September 2022 2:59pm
New paper: A novel method for identifying coded tags recorded on aquatic acoustic monitoring systems
26 September 2022 2:11pm
Authors demonstrated "a low cost, simple method to support acoustic tag surveys by identifying tags both from direct acoustic recordings & by reconstructing code packets from processed C-POD data. Method was applied to decode tag detections from bass & Twaite shad."
Software Engineer, Yale Center for Biodiversity and Global Change
26 September 2022 1:19pm
HeroX Challenge: Better Call Trawl
NASA Tournament Lab
21 September 2022 6:50pm
New paper: Evaluation of a coastal acoustic buoy for cetacean detections, bearing accuracy and exclusion zone monitoring
20 September 2022 3:00pm
Authors "developed a three-hydrophone passive acoustic monitoring system that provides bearing information along with marine mammal detections to allow for informed management decisions in real-time."
Online Course – Introduction to Aquatic Acoustic Telemetry
14 September 2022 6:13pm
World Ocean Tech and Innovation Summit
13 September 2022 1:12pm
Catch Up with the Variety Hour: September
6 September 2022 12:31pm
Postdoc: Noise Impacts on Marine Animals
1 September 2022 9:25pm
Solicitation of Interest: NAVFAC Atlantic Marine Resources
31 August 2022 7:28pm
Consultancy - Development and implementation of SMART for Sao Tome and Principe
31 August 2022 5:24pm
ONLINE COURSE: Grant Writing for Wildlife Conservation
31 August 2022 2:38pm
Acoustics Modeler & Analyst, Marine Acoustics Inc
30 August 2022 9:45am
Opportunity: Commercial Director
12 August 2022 12:57am
3yr Postdoctoral Associate: Remote Sensing and Unoccupied Aircraft Systems
10 August 2022 5:29pm
Catch Up with the WILDLABS Variety Hour: August
10 August 2022 11:44am
Sydney seals: From Manly to Malabar, marine life sprawls across a city
8 August 2022 12:59pm
This came to me by way of my dad over the weekend, but it's is full of familiar names and has started popping up from other places in the conservation tech network. It's a gorgeous visual story via The Sydney Morning Herald, telling the tail of the return of fur seals in and around Sydney. It highlights PhD student Vanessa Morris' PhD research and the citizen science program Vanessa Pirotta created called Wild Sydney Harbour (www.wildsydneyharbour.com).
Ocean Tracking Network Symposium 2022
5 August 2022 2:47pm
HydroMoth GroupGets campaign
28 June 2022 11:07am
20 July 2022 3:06am
From Alex on Twitter:
Yes. The HydroMoth has the same microphone and firmware as the standard AudioMoth which is widely used for terrestrial conservation. You would need the standard green case which has a waterproof acoustic vent.
20 July 2022 5:57pm
@Andrew_Hill Out of curiosity, since this campaign reached its goal & is ending soon, is it possible to turn the remaining Hydromoth units that didn't sell into Audiomoths for a limited GroupGets? I understand that Hydromoths can be used terrestrially as well, but they are more expensive than the last Audiomoth campaigns have been by $50+ so just wanted to see if Audiomoths would still be cheaper. Just trying to figure out if I should buy more Hydromoths or wait until Audiomoths start selling again (ends up being a trade-off between cost and time basically).
31 July 2022 5:20pm
@Andrew_Hill I wonder if you could let us know more about the time keeping difference btw the regular AudioMoth and the HydroMoth (which is said to do better)?
26 September 2022 1:43pm
Hi Sebastian,
How about using webcams, like this one in the Adriatic (if high enough detail):
If not, it might be worth contacting https://reefish.umontpellier.fr/ who are based in Montpellier. They do marine research, (I think including some fish ID machine learning stuff too), so may have done work locally?
Cheers