These days we’re adopting the use of AI and it’s applications in almost every sector.
Be it,
-> Banking & Finance
-> Healthcare
-> Agriculture
-> Self-driving cars
-> E-commerce
-> Entertainment
…The list is literally endless!
But,
Has it still impacted or touched our beloved wildlife kingdom?
The answer is Yes!
Infact, AI has been considered as one of the top 3 technologies that would help in conservation & protection of species around the globe.
As of now,
AI is adding value to protect species such as:
-> Humpback whales
-> Koalas
-> Snow Leopards
It’s really interesting to know how AI is helping for conservation!
1) Stopping poachers
-> Kafue National Park in Zambia is home to around 6,600 African Elephants & is around 22,400 sq. km.
Trying to stop poaching posts a huge logistical challenge as it’s a very big area to cover and that too it’s very dark inside the forest area.
The management at the national park installed thermal cameras to identify illegal poaching but monitoring too many cameras manually is also a hectic task
So, now an AI model is trained that automatically detects the signs of illegal activity.
The model is trying to improve to avoid false readings but once that is done, it’d be a game changer!
2) Tracking water loss
-> “Brazil lost more than 15% of it’s surface water in past 30 years” And the surprising thing is,
This only came to light with the help of AI!
The MapBiomas water project processed more than 1,50,000 images generated by NASA’s satellites from 1985 to 2000 around Brazil and with AI model, it came to know about this water loss
These water changes are crucial because these wetlands are home to around 4,000 species of plants and animals!
Now, when we have the data to speak, actions can be taken to tackle these changes
3) Finding Whales
-> Locating humpback whales is difficult but acoustic recorders are used to monitor these marine mammals which are far on islands which are hard to access
A research oceanographer said, They have 14 years of acoustic recordings but imagine how much time it would take for an individual to identify those whale vocalizations!
But with AI, this researcher partnered with Google AI to create a model that could recognize humpback whale song and they got successful too!
4) Protecting Koalas
-> Koala populations are on a decline due to habitat destruction, bushfires, accidents in Australia
It’s challenging to protect them without knowledge of their whereabouts.
Queensland University of Technology has created conservation AI hub that uses drones, infrared imaging and AI algorithm to analyze the countless hours of video footage & identify these rare species of Koala!
5) Counting species
Image classification algorithms are helpful in counting species which are rare and on verge of extinction!
The Mbaza AI algorithm used in 2020 to analyze more than 50,000 images, classifies upto 3,000 images in an hour and is 96% accurate!
This is how AI is saving the planet earth by conservating the species and wildlife around the globe!
It’d be very interesting to see what would AI come up with in the future!
References: The Guardian
