HELPIDENTIFY ANIMALSONLINE
Discuss Wildlife Insights at http://www.facebook.com/webusermagazine 22 Jan - 4 Feb 2020^39
Wildlife Insights
will be able to concentrate on discovering
trends rather than first spending ages
working out what’s in a photo.
Is it proving very accurate?
Currently, identification is between 80
and 98.6% accurate across 614 species,
but the more input Wildlife Insights
receives, the greater the probability of
a correct prediction. Much depends on
the quality of the data – animals that are
far away from the camera, hidden or
snapped in poor light, for instance, could
prove difficult to identify.
Additionally, as anyone with a security
camera at home will know, sensor-
activated devices can give off alerts for
innocuous events such as the wind
blowing or a leaf falling. The same goes
for camera traps, where a huge
proportion of photos are taken because
the sensor has been triggered by a non-
animal related event. In these
circumstances, Wildlife Instincts flags
empty-looking images so that time isn’t
wasted trying to analyse them.
What does Wildlife Insights
do with the images?
The images are stored online in Google
Cloud so they can be accessed anywhere
around the world on any internet-
connected device. Since they are mapped
to a specific camera trap, it’s possible to
see how many images have been taken at
each location, view the number of
cameras and, most importantly, identify
the number and type of species (app
.wildlifeinsights.org/explore). In London,
for example, the Red Fox is the most
commonly snapped species, while in
Korup National Park in Cameroon, AI is
distinguishing between the Blue Duiker,
Forest Giant Pouched Rat, Ogilby’s Duiker
and the Red River Hog among 48 species.
What can scientists discover
about animals?
They can look at the population size of a
species, see how human activity is
affecting numbers and work out the
relationship between predators and prey.
Land managers, meanwhile, can assess
the success of anti-poaching measures,
get a better overview of protected areas
and see more quickly where conservation
is needed. Given that a report by the
United Nations says nature is declining at
unprecedented rates – a million animal
and plant species are threatened with
extinction and many could disappear
within decades – the initiative is likely to
prove invaluable.Can anyone use the data?
Yes. Anyone can view the maps and
download data. Google claims Wildlife
Insights is the largest and most diverse
collection of camera-trap images open to
the public, and lets you filter by image,
species, country and year to get an
insight into the diversity of the globe’s
wildlife.However,theplatformis stillin
beta,andis onlyacceptingapplications
fromscientificorganisations,soyou’ll
havetowaitif youfancysharingthedata
froma cameratrapin yourgardenand
wantaccesstothefullsetoffeatures.Do scientists have access to
advanced tools?
Scientific users, once they’ve been
verified, can use Wildlife Insights to
create and collaborate on projects, share
data, have species identified using AI and
view basic analytics. There are video
tutorials that guide you through
uploading photos, creating projects and
navigating the platform.
Furthermore, everything is currently
free to use – although a premium
subscription-based tier is being
considered. There’s an online manual at
bit.ly/manual493.Willit allowtrackingof
individualanimals?
Notatthisstage.TheAIis being
developedtoidentifyspeciesratherthan
pinpointanysingleanimal,although
Googlesaysit is lookingtoheadin that
directionatsomestagein thefuture.The
companyalsoexplainsthattheWildlife
Insightsinfrastructurecouldpickupon
acousticdatabutthat,currently,theAI
technologyis onlysupportingcamera-
trapimages.In anycase,thetechnology
lookssettomoveconservationonin
leapsandboundsatthiscriticaltimefor
theworld’swildlife.The Zoological Society of London
is one of the organisations
involved with Wildlife Insights,
but it also has its own non-AI
initiative called Instant Wild
(instantwild.zsl.org). This shows
visitors a series of live images
and videos from locations across
the world and asks for help in
identifying them.
By visiting the website, you can
view as many images as you like.
Simply click Tag next to an image and
either enter a species name or select
one from a list of animals named by
conservationists as being generally
found in that area.When more than 10 people give the
same identification, the result is
passed through to the project
scientist. You can also use the mobile
app, which has been downloaded
more than 130,000 times.Wildlife Insights can distinguish between
the different species captured by cameras
Use filters to explore Wildlife Insights’ data
by species, year and other criteriaThe Wildlife Insights website provides full
details of how to get involved in the project