Birding With the World’s First AI-Powered Binoculars

Via Wired, a report on Swarovski Optik’s new AX Visio binoculars which use image-recognition algorithms and GPS data to discern the species of whatever bird you point them at. And they work anywhere in the world. Photo-Illustration: Ali Cherkis; Getty Images The Austrian company Swarovski Optik has been innovating in long-range optical instruments

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How Satellites Are Mapping The Future Of Turtle Conservation

Marine turtles spend almost their entire lives at sea – but little is known about the paths they take. Now, as reported by BBC, satellites are helping scientists map their movements during the “lost years”. In early June 2024, Donna Shello, an adult female leatherback turtle, was hanging out on a sandy beach along the

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Will Open Source Data and AI Help The Oceans Survive?

Via USA Today, a look at how open-source data and AI can help the world’s oceans survive a record-breaking year of heat: Approximately one in four marine life creatures live in coral reefs. Commonly mistaken for plants, corals are critical animals that provide aquatic species with the food, shelter, and breeding grounds necessary for

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To Reduce Wildlife Deaths Caused by Fences, Scientists Are Turning to AI

Via Science.org, a look at how software trained to identify fences from aerial images could help wildlife managers prevent pronghorn from getting stuck and starving: As many as 1 million kilometers of fence may crisscross the western United States, enough to stretch to the Moon and back. Erected over the past century, largely to contain

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Sea Lions Equipped with Cameras Help Uncover Uncharted Ocean Habitats

Via Terra Daily, a look at how tech-enabled sea lions are helping uncover ocean habitats: The world’s seabeds remain largely unexplored, with current knowledge being inconsistent. Utilizing remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) to study seabeds can be costly, dependent on weather conditions, and challenging in deep, remote areas.To

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Artificial Intelligence Could Soon Turn Anyone into an Expert Tracker

Via Hakai Magazine, a look at how scientists are working on a machine learning tool that could, one day, identify individual animals from photographs of their footprints: Some wild animals are relatively easy to study. Certain penguin populations, for instance, are so unaccustomed to large predators that they barely fear humans and will often

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ABOUT
Networked Nature
New technical innovations such as location-tracking devices, GPS and satellite communications, remote sensors, laser-imaging technologies, light detection and ranging” (LIDAR) sensing, high-resolution satellite imagery, digital mapping, advanced statistical analytical software and even biotechnology and synthetic biology are revolutionizing conservation in two key ways: first, by revealing the state of our world in unprecedented detail; and, second, by making available more data to more people in more places. The mission of this blog is to track these technical innovations that may give conservation the chance – for the first time – to keep up with, and even get ahead of, the planet’s most intractable environmental challenges. It will also examine the unintended consequences and moral hazards that the use of these new tools may cause.Read More