Camera traps are ubiquitous in conservation. They’re deployed to monitor biodiversity, study animal behavior, observe habitats over long periods of time, and enforce effective conservation action on the ground. However, they have an inherent shortcoming that’s especially prominent in remote locations like dense forests and cut-off islands. “They’re largely passive. People put them out and then half a year later, or a year later, they go and collect this,” Dante Wasmuht, head of artificial intelligence at the nonprofit Conservation X Labs, tells Mongabay in a video interview. “From the moment something happens in that area until a human knows about it, a lot of time can pass.” To address this issue and encourage early intervention, Conservation X Labs has developed an AI-powered tool that can be attached to camera traps to provide real-time updates on what’s happening in the forests. “It’s as if that camera is connected to a small computer which is the Sentinel,” Wasmuht says. “Whenever the camera trap takes a picture, the Sentinel knows and transfers the image onto its inner computer chip and can run all those AI models completely locally right there in the field.” The Sentinel has been deployed in various countries to track invasive species, monitor wildlife poaching, and keep an eye on threatened animals. In New Zealand, more than 80 Sentinel devices have been used to monitor invasive species on remote islands. On Ova Island, for example, the device played a critical role in detecting invasive rats that were wreaking havoc on…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed