Artificial intelligence to help combat elephant poaching
Every 15 minutes, an African elephant is killed by a poacher. New artificial intelligence (AI) technology may well change this disturbing statistic.
Developed by British researcher Olga
Isupova, this new algorithm photographs and analyses large areas to
identify African elephants. Working with a satellite, the technology
will greatly aid the fight against ivory poaching.
The satellite scans vast wilderness areas in a short amount of time, collecting close to 5 000 square kilometres of photos, highlighting any elephants within the images. This works especially well with elephants as they’re easier to spot due to their large size. These results are then compared to the results collected by human counting.
“The programme counts the number of
elephants by itself, which no longer puts the people who used to do this
task in danger. The animals are no longer disturbed and the data
collection process is more efficient,” explains Isupova.
Published on March 25, 2021, the
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) revealed that
poaching, along with massive deforestation, is exposing the African
forest elephant (in Central and West Africa) to a critical danger of
extinction. Along with the more common savanna elephants, populations
have declined dramatically in the last fifty years.
This technological intervention,
along with human action in the fight against poaching will guide
researchers as they hope to further develop the technology to include
other threatened species.
