Neoichnology. The science of footprints. Footprints for wildlife conservation. Last week something remarkable happened. A group of wildlife conservationists, physicists, geologists, security experts, computer scientists, statisticians, drone experts and engineers from all over the world got together to discuss a different approach to wildlife monitoring. A non-invasive approach, one that…
What led two rhino conservationists working in a remote area of Africa to discover a better way of keeping track of rhino? The answer is JMP software. We had some novel ideas, and JMP allowed us to test and implement them, resulting in our Footprint Identification Technique (FIT), and other…
Can senseFly’s eBee X help us monitor rhino and other wildlife in Africa? We’re here in Namibia trialing this awesome drone using many different parameters and on-board sensors. We’re super grateful to Robert Leake of senseFly Europe for his expertise in challenging conditions, and to the Reinhard family at Kuzikus…
The WildTrack team is in Namibia filming two techniques for monitoring black rhino; FIT in JMP software to identify individuals, and using senseFly eBee X fixed-wing aircraft to survey landscapes for trails. We’re with the German Terra X documentary group with Director Christopher Gerisch, who will be making a documentary…
This CFIT presentation was given to the Conservation Technology session at the September 2019 AZA Annual Meeting in New Orleans. Schwartz, K. and Jewell, Z. September 2019. ConservationFIT: AZA Big Cat Footprints Contribute to Conservation Monitoring in the Wild. 2019 AZA Annual Meeting Proceedings, New Orleans, LA
WildTrack is partnering with the US leading fixed-wing drone manufacturer senseFly to explore the use of their excellent integrated drone mapping systems for wildlife monitoring. A few days ago we visited the Duke Marine Lab at Beaufort, NC, with senseFly, to test out senseFly’s new eBee X drone. Here’s what…
Over the summer we’ve been trialing more efficient ways of collecting footprint images, making it easy for citizen scientists to participate in our work. We knew we needed a mobile app for this task, so that smartphone users can easily capture images that fit our standardized WildTrack protocol. We’re happy…
WildTrack has recorded prints in almost every kind of substrate you can imagine – sand, snow, mud, gravel, charcoal etc) but yesterday we received something completely new! Every year in North Carolina, the pine trees shed a huge load of pollen. For a few days each Spring all outdoor surfaces…
Living with Tigers Project lead researcher Amy Fitzmaurice ran a successful training workshop for Nepal Tiger Trust (NTT) on WildTrack’s Footprint Identification Technique (FIT). The training was part of a new collaborative project to build a database of pictures of Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) and common leopard (Panthera pardus…
Check out our new WildTrack website! We showcase our academic and research work and bring our citizen science portal, ConservationFIT, on board to streamline our mission. Other changes are new image sets to guide data collection, new showcase projects and a clearer partner presence. We’re also sharing some of the…
