Machines Count Wildlife

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Overview A Deakin IT research team is helping Parks Victoria to track wildlife and improve park management. In a time of increasing environmental vulnerability, technology is coming to the aid of Victoria’s wildlife. Many of the photos contained no animals at all and all the photos had to be sorted manually, which was extremely time consuming. In an innovative project, Deakin University researchers are developing technology that will provide more useful data than ever before on the movement of wildlife in up to 20 of Victoria’s 44 national parks. Inventors Professor Yong Xiang, Associate Head (Research) of the School of Information Technology, and his team have begun developing a system that will use machine learning and pattern recognition to identify if animals have been captured within sensor camera images and, eventually, identify the types of animals photographed. The School of Information Technology’s Dr Longxiang Gao, Dr Tianrui Zong and Mr Yongqing Jiang are also working on the project, with Mr Jiang undertaking two three-month internships with Parks Victoria to support development and integration of the new system. Benefits The project will be particularly valuable for monitoring populations after bushfire, floods or drought and to measure the impact of introduced predators, such as foxes and cats, on vulnerable populations. It will inform park management strategies such as planned burns, predator control, weed works and habitat restoration – replacing the costly and labour intensive process of using traps for wildlife monitoring. The technology could provide a model for improved monitoring of wildlife across Australia and overseas.   Current Stage The researchers have begun with a “proof of concept” phase – developing an algorithm that allows software to identify if an animal is in a photograph. Future Over future stages, the algorithm will be made compatible with the Parks Victoria IT system; a central database will be developed for storage and compilation of the data; animals will be identified from video; and, finally, a wireless sensor network will be investigated, so data can be collected automatically within each park, removing the need for rangers or volunteers to manually collect data cards from each camera.