In a unique class hosted at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, early-career ecologists learned to apply emerging technologies to power conservation breakthroughs.
Across the planet, ecological scientists are collecting more visual and acoustic data than ever before — using drones, satellite imagery, underwater sensors and video recordings to monitor wildlife at unprecedented scale.
A single drone survey over Central Asian grasslands, for example, can capture thousands of images in search of a small population of gazelles. Sorting through these photos would take a researcher countless hours. Artificial intelligence, or A.I., models can be trained to rapidly sort through these images, identifying which images contain animals in just a fraction of the time.
