Artificial Intelligence (AI) with its myriad of applications over the years in the research labs and business world is now stepping onto the arena of wildlife conservation.

The recent advances in Machine Learning, Deep Learning (DL) and especially Image Recognition technologies have paved the way for development AI-based applications that play a significant role in wildlife conservation.

Why AI for Conservation?

AI in collaboration with other technologies like Big Data is aiding wildlife researchers in studying and protecting wildlife. From predicting the extinction of endangered species to assessing species population, measuring the global footprint of industries & businesses, predicting climate changes and stopping wildlife poaching, AI changing the future of environmental conservation.

Wildlife Conservation Projects Using AI

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is working in collaboration with Intel on monitoring and protecting Siberian tigers in China by leveraging AI. Their collaboration has resulted in the development of an integrated solution that comprises a visual device at the frontend and an analysis & recognition platform at the backend.

The visual device called Intel Movidius has been deployed for surveillance and data collection in tigers’ habitat. For analysis of collected data on tigers and to track them, the back-end platform leverages TensorFlow tools and Intel’s DL library MKL-DNN. This solution has also deployed to protect polar bears and whales across the world.

DeepMind

Capturing photographs of animals and identifying them using humans usually would take more than a year. DeepMind, a UK-based company developed a product that helped to speed up the process and recognizes most of the animal species with high-accuracy.

This product which leverages ML has been deployed at Serengeti National Park in Tanzania to detect and count animals using millions of pictures taken at the park.

Rainforest Connection

Rainforest Connection is a San Francisco-based non-profit organization that is using AI to fight wildlife poaching. Their product called RCFx acoustic monitoring system helps by recognizing activity patterns related to bushmeat hunting like detecting the presence of trucks, motorcycles, cars and other vehicles.

This system has been deployed in African key roads using which poachers enter the rainforest. This helps the wildlife organizations to protect the rainforest to allocate manpower on days or hours when poaching activity is predicted to be high.

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