How Do You Count Endangered Species? Look to the Stars
The conversation started over a fence dividing two backyards. On one side, an ecologist remarked that surveying animals is a pain. His neighbor, an astronomer, said he could see objects in space billions of light years away.
And so began an unusual partnership to adapt tools originally developed to detect stars in the sky to monitor animals on the ground.
The neighbors, Steven Longmore, the astronomer, and Serge Wich, the ecologist, both of Liverpool John Moores University in England, made their backyard banter a reality that may contribute to conservation and the fight against poaching.
The scientists developed a system of drones and special cameras that can record rare and endangered species on the ground, day or night. Computer-vision and machine-learning techniques that help researchers study the universe’s oldest and most distant galaxies can now be used to find animals in video footage.
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Claire Burke, an astrophysicist at the university now leading the project, presented the team’s latest findings at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science on Tuesday.
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Keeping track of elusive animals, especially those that are endangered, isn’t trivial. First, it takes time and money to conduct manual counts on the ground or to shoot photos from planes in the sky. With video, cheaper drones and software, identifying animals has become more efficient.
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