Wildlife crime is one of the greatest challenges facing conservation, and one of the conservation tech world's biggest areas of innovation. With new ideas and solutions constantly being put forth to track and protect species targeted by poachers, manage protected areas and support rangers, and combat the growing online market for illegal wildlife products, the engineers and conservationists working to solve wildlife crime's many challenges rely on tools like machine learning, biologging, camera traps, acoustic monitoring, drones, mobile apps, and more.
This wide variety of overlapping technology makes our Wildlife Crime group a potential melting pot for many of our other communities, and makes it an especially exciting place to find collaborators working in different tech spheres to meet a common goal. Whether you're a camera trap expert looking for information on thermal vision to spot potential poachers, a machine learning expert with the skills to analyze acoustic data for gunshots, or a protected area manager seeking the latest integrated mobile tools, this group can connect you with the right members of our community!
Below, you'll find WILDLABS resources and conversations to help you understand how different technologies are being put to work in the fight against wildlife crime, and what conservation tech practitioners need for these tools to be effective.
Three Tutorials and Videos for Beginners:
- How do I use AI to fight wildlife crime? | Lily Xu, Tech Tutors
- WWF Wildlife Crime Technology Project | Eric Becker, Virtual Meetups
- SmartParks | Laurens de Groot, Virtual Meetups
Three Forum Threads for Beginners:
- Snare detection technologies | Rachel Kramer
- Tools for conservation management | Chris Muashekele
- Looking for Intelligence Database Software | Dexter Oelrichs
Three Articles for Beginners:
- Using AIS data to investigate the world's fishing ports, Max Schofield
- How do Wildlife Crime Experts view Remote Sensing Technologies used to Combat Illegal Wildlife Crime?, Isla Duporge
- Metal Detecting Sensors for Anti-Poaching, Sam Seccombe
Join this group now to get to know our community and start discussing solutions and ideas together!
Header photo: © Frank af Petersens/Save the Elephants
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We are living in the midst of a pretty exciting era. Never before has humanity been more educated, more connected, more enabled, or more empowered than we are today. There are many reasons to be optimistic about the...
17 February 2016
New horizon scanning report published this month identifies 15 emerging threats and opportunities for global biodiversity.
3 February 2016
From artificial “sniffer” technologies to portable DNA sequencers, the Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge received hundreds of innovative ideas to help stamp out wildlife crime. Now, the Challenge is proud to announce 16...
22 January 2016
Gary Atkinson, Director of Emerging Technologies at ARM, explains why we should be interested in the Internet of Things. Could it be a game changer for conservation?
10 December 2015
Can games have real world impacts on issues like the illegal wildlife trade? In part two of his case study for the Gaming for Conservation Group, Peter Jacobs discusses United for Wildlife's efforts to engage young...
3 December 2015
The 2015 Fuller Symposium brought together thought leaders in science, policy, business, conservation and development to tackle emerging issues facing our planet. This framing piece was developed to support a Fuller...
26 November 2015
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Traceability (knowing where products come from and how they are made) is a foundational pre-cursor for many sustainability interventions. While many tools have been developed to offer high-level insight about the...
26 November 2015
Can games raise awareness of conservation issues like the illegal wildlife trade? In part one of his case study for the Gaming for Conservation Group, Peter Jacobs discusses how United for Wildlife is partnering with...
25 November 2015
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Environmental DNA (eDNA) is nuclear or mitochondrial DNA that is released from an organism into the environment. Sources of eDNA include secreted faeces, mucous, gametes, shed skin, hair and carcasses. In this article,...
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Thanks, @Drue+Freeman . You raise excellent points, here. In my experience with projects that use protected area monitoring and management software such as the... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 1 month ago | |
Hello - I wrote up a lessons learned from the Hack for Wildlife that we ran in Chicago. https://medium.com/@mygshah/i-just-ran-my-first-hackathon-you-can-too-... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 3 months ago | |
Hi Isla, The 3 threats are all situational and location dependent. For example, in South Africa there is a very well established muti industry and huge muti markets in KwaZulu... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 3 months ago | |
Wildlife Crime group, A set of Training Guidelines for Anti Poaching Field Rangers were launched... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 3 months ago | |
Hi everyone, Isla has shared the results of this survey in a new article in our Resources area. You can read her full analysis of the survey results here: https... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 6 months ago | |
That paper is available on Sci Hub. |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 9 months ago | |
Hi Rachel, the intended audience is individuals and organizations working on tech/innovative solutions to protect wildlife, although the principles of partnership building in... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 10 months ago | |
I just saw this article about embedding GPS trackers in fake turtle eggs. It reminded me of the Nat Geo story from last year where they did... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 10 months ago | |
It sounds like @David+Baisch at Conservation X Labs just ordered a SCiO spec and developer's kit to test its sensitivity. They're interested in ... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 10 months ago | |
Hello all, A new rhino poaching report is out by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. ... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 10 months ago | |
For those who are interested in following changes in rhino poaching numbers in South Africa, I highly reccommend this website. They post... |
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Wildlife Crime | 8 years ago | |
Here's a few apps relevant to combatting wildlife crime. 1. ENV- Report Wildlife Crime - This app specifically focuses on... |
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Wildlife Crime | 8 years 1 month ago |
5 Smart Technologies That Will Crack Down On Wildlife Trafficking
14 November 2016 12:00am
How do you use remote sensing tech to combat wildlife and forest crime?
14 July 2016 10:43am
1 August 2016 9:19pm
Excellent thread! I look forward to hearing the results of the survey.
8 November 2016 10:25am
Hi everyone,
Isla has shared the results of this survey in a new article in our Resources area. You can read her full analysis of the survey results here:
https://www.wildlabs.net/resources/thought-pieces/what-are-risks-associated-using-remote-sensing-technology-combat-wildlife
I am interested to hear your thoughts about these results - do they match your expectations?
Steph
Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act grants via USFWS
8 November 2016 12:00am
How do Wildlife Crime Experts view Remote Sensing Technologies used to Combat Illegal Wildlife Crime?
7 November 2016 12:00am
Zoohackathon: 'END LOOP - Coding to end wildlife trafficking'
22 September 2016 12:00am
Tiger poacher likely convicted due to camera trap evidence
23 November 2015 7:24pm
8 August 2016 11:16am
A new paper in Biological Conservation assesses the efficacy of camera trapping as a tool for increasing detection rates of wildlife crime in tropical protected areas:
The future of biodiversity in Asia is increasingly dependent on networks of effective protected areas. Three wildlife sanctuaries of the Bangladesh Sundarbans are typical examples of protected areas where detection and monitoring of threats is difficult due to low densities of patrol staff and low frequency of patrolling relative to the area that requires monitoring. The aim of this study was to use camera traps to quantify: 1) the levels of different types of illegal human activities (IHA), 2) spatio-temporal variation in illegal human activities, and 3) what proportion of camera trap records can be used to identify perpetrators. Each photograph was categorized as either illegal human activity (IHA) or legal human activity (LHA) based on interpretation of the particular human activity and equipment observed in photograph. For IHA, infraction type was based on the Bangladesh Wildlife (Conservation and Security) Act 2012. A total of 914 unique human activity events were recorded (872 IHA and 42 LHA) in camera trap photos over a total of 1039 trap nights. The best model suggests that during spring tide 91% of camera trapped locations in the West Sanctuary had IHA occurring in them during the survey period, while 84% and 74% locations had IHA in the South Sanctuary and East Sanctuary respectively. Camera trapping in remote areas can potentially help protected area managers to increase rates of detection of IHA in their conservation landscapes and increase rates of arrests and prosecutions by providing appropriate supporting evidence.
I'm interested to hear from the community on this one - are you using camera traps for purposes other than wildlife monitoring?
10 August 2016 4:21pm
That paper is available on Sci Hub.
Perspectives from the World Ranger Congress
10 August 2016 12:00am
Best tech solutions and their partnerships vs. wildlife crime
18 July 2016 8:03pm
20 July 2016 6:20pm
Thank you Dave and Stephanie.
Stephanie, I look at partnerships broadly, so both your examples apply. In other words, by partnership I mean an arrangement where two or more parties agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests.
Entering into a partnership can have a number of benefits. However, partnerships can also have a number of challenges, including time, energy, and resources. I am interested in uncovering concrete examples of best practices in building partnerships in the wildlife crime/tech space.
26 July 2016 7:22pm
What's the indended audience for your case study and where will it be published/used, @mariemainil?
26 July 2016 8:52pm
Hi Rachel, the intended audience is individuals and organizations working on tech/innovative solutions to protect wildlife, although the principles of partnership building in the brief will apply more broadly. Publication is TBD but I will surely share the results here to keep the conversation going.
Marie
GPS trackers in trafficked animal parts
26 July 2016 7:24pm
Ivory ID using portable molecular sensors?
1 July 2016 4:01pm
12 July 2016 7:37pm
There are so few details on the link that it is not possible to judge whether that particualr hardware will be any use for anything. I suspect that it used near infra-red which has some applications for bulk anayses of foods but I doubt that it could distinguish different types of animal ivory. It might be able to discriminate between vegetable and animal ivory.
26 July 2016 4:40pm
Thanks, @Peter+Apps . I reached out to ConsumerPhysics for more information. They said that scanning animal ivories for identification purposes is likely to be feasible with SCiO and that others may be considering this application as well.
They confirmed that SCiO uses NIR spectroscopy for classification between different substances, providing that the molecular fingerprints are different enough from each other. It sounds like they did a basic feasibility test that "showed promise in classifying ivory samples from different kinds of animals - elephant, mammoth, hippopotamus and walrus, as well as plastic mock-ivory samples. The corresponding molecular sensing models and applications will have to be developed further for better insight. This may be developed in the future either by us or by the SCiO developer community using the SCiO Development Toolkit, which allows users to create models and apps."
They suggested that a user would need to take two things into consideration when working toward this application: "First, as SCiO’s detection threshold varies by material, and is typically 0.1%-1%, some micro-nutrients will not be detectable. This requires further research. In addition, it should be noted that building the database for such an application requires access to samples and their chemical characteristics."
More info on DevKit SDK is online here: https://www.consumerphysics.com/myscio/developers/ and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wDLSF0ZkIA. I have no experience with this technology and no connection to ConsumerPhysics, but it sounds interesting.
I think this could be a good research project for someone in the WILDLABS community. With the scope of our network, gaining access to samples should not be a challenge.
26 July 2016 7:06pm
It sounds like @David+Baisch at Conservation X Labs just ordered a SCiO spec and developer's kit to test its sensitivity. They're interested in seeing whether the device can be used to differentiate beteween tree species in treated and untreated wood products. Looking forward to learning more about that process!
Video: Discover the SMART Approach
20 July 2016 12:00am
New rhino poaching report out
11 July 2016 1:36pm
Can Drones Live up to the Hype?
8 July 2016 12:00am
Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge Accelerator Bootcamp
24 June 2016 12:00am
Rhino poaching statistics in South Africa
1 June 2016 2:39pm
TEAM Network and Wildlife Insights
28 April 2016 12:00am
Wildlife Crime Apps
13 April 2016 3:46pm
The Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART)
15 March 2016 12:00am
Disruptive Technology: Embracing the Transformative Impacts of Software on Society
10 March 2016 12:00am
15th International Elephant & Rhino Conservation and Research Symposium
4 March 2016 12:00am
Bringing Conservation Technology to Life
17 February 2016 12:00am
JIGZAW and Mars Omega, an introduction
2 February 2016 3:17pm
3 February 2016 4:44am
Thanks Anthony - what is the best way to introduce others to your product and solutions? I live in Kenya - can you disclose who you are working with here?
With regards to a scale up partner, can you provide a few more details on what you are looking for?
Gautam!
3 February 2016 10:08am
Hi Gautam,
I think the best way is have them read the thread, and then get back to me with questions - I can then respond on a case-by-case basis. Our website is here: http://www.marsomega.com. We have not yet updated it to make public our involvement in countering wildlife crime, but that will be done shortly.
On disclosure, Hamish is actually in Kenya from tomorrow, and he is talking to our Kenyan partners to make sure they are happy to have this information made more freely available. We necessarily are being very discreet.
On scaling - as one of the 16 Prize WInners in the Wildlfe Criem Tech Challenge, we have only just started talking to the competition sponsors about acceleration and scaling. Once we have established that process and have more information ourselves, I will be happy to discuss this further.
Best regards,
Anthony
JIGZAW - information collection and use
3 February 2016 9:55am
Report outlines 2016's most pressing conservation issues
3 February 2016 12:00am
Illegal wildlife sales on social media
4 January 2016 3:56pm
26 January 2016 4:14pm
This post made me wander whether we could employ social media listening tools to identify illegal wildlife trade hotspots, levels, changes in attitude towards IWT products etc.? Perhaps already being done? Here's some case studies from Brandwatch of how brands are using social media listening: https://www.brandwatch.com/case-studies/
Real-time anti-poaching tags to prevent imminent species extinctions?
22 January 2016 2:49pm
Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge: Winners Announced!
22 January 2016 12:00am
The Impact of the Internet of Things
10 December 2015 12:00am
Gaming for Good: Minecraft and Quiz Up
3 December 2015 12:00am
Harnessing Big Data to Combat Illegal Wildlife, Timber and Fisheries Trade
26 November 2015 12:00am
27 July 2016 6:48pm
Great! Looking forward to learning your results in August.