After months of fasting as she traveled hundreds of kilometers across the ocean, a female loggerhead sea turtle hauls herself up onto the sand: the shoreline she has returned to…
On a midsummer evening earlier this year, Tracy Pham was on a walk along Huntington Beach, California, an outing she usually made to photograph birds. This time, along the way,…
Monitoring technology deployed in a remote rainforest over time subjects it to high heat, humidity, and rainfall, as well as potential damage by insects and other wildlife. When you add…
Technology users and tech developers don’t always talk directly to each other, but they should. The relatively small size of the scientific/conservation community and its need for a particular suite…
Researchers have developed a web-based application to enable citizen scientists to listen to the sounds of killer whales in the northeast Pacific in real time. Publicly launched on Nov. 1,…
An extensive study of the leopard population in the wildlife-rich southern Indian state of Karnataka has indicated that these big cats are thriving there, buoying hopes the species’ genetic pool…
Since the arrival of the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) caterpillar in West Africa in early 2016, true to its name, it has been marching quickly and mercilessly through the continent,…
The iNaturalist species data- and image-sharing platform reached a milestone earlier this month with its one millionth observer. The platform consists of a mobile app and corresponding website that help…
The non-profit Conservation X Labs (CXL) recently announced twenty finalists for the Con X Tech Prize – subtitled “Hacking Extinction.” The finalists will receive $3,500 to continue developing their projects,…
South American bats speak dialects different from those of their North American counterparts. In response, a group of scientists has developed the first artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm for acoustic identification…
As early as 2009-10, researchers were looking at Twitter data mining as a way to predict the incidence of flu. At the time, the H1N1 virus, or “swine flu,” had…
The Great Elephant Census, conducted in 2014 and 2015, counted more than 350,000* elephants across 18 African countries. Human observers in small planes flew some 294,000 kilometers during more than 1,500…
Cameras add monitoring power Field data collection is challenging in the best of conditions, and in an environment as harsh as Antarctica, large-scale, long-term field monitoring studies are rare. To…
It’s June, and migratory songbirds in the northern hemisphere are at their summer breeding grounds, having traveled thousands of miles from their warm-weather overwintering areas. Birds migrate as far north…
People love camera traps. Placed in the middle of a forest or savanna, their motion sensors trigger a photo when an animal or person passes by. They allow us to…
Last month, Seattle Audubon hosted a panel discussion featuring Mongabay staff and colleagues about the ever-growing applications of technology for conservation. Mongabay Founder and CEO Rhett A. Butler moderated the…
Coral reef conservation efforts will soon get a major boost with a global monitoring system that will detect physical changes in coral cover at high resolution on a daily basis,…
If it wasn’t for the hidden camera, the poachers might have escaped undetected. A few minutes past midnight on Jan. 19, a camera positioned at an obscure location inside the…
New technologies are generating far more information than ever before to help scientists assess and predict the health and behavior of species and ecosystems, as well as the threats they…
This coming weekend, nature lovers from cities around the globe will have a chance to test their species identification skills in a global competition. The third-annual City Nature Challenge takes place April…
An unlikely group of experts have teamed up to apply software developed to find distant stars to help solve problems in conservation ecology. The “astro-ecology” project at Liverpool Johns Moores…
Sharks are in trouble worldwide, with one study estimating that people kill up to 100 million of them each year through illegal fishing, shark finning, and bycatch. The negative public…
Neil Sahota is an IBM Master Inventor and World Wide Business Development Leader in the company's Watson Group. He works to create solutions powered by Watson, the supercomputer that he…
Why are scientists turning to aerial images to monitor the health of ecosystems found beneath the ocean’s surface? Coral reefs support millions of species ranging from single-celled algae to sharks…
Jarrod Hodgson is one of very few scientists who have used rubber ducks as part of their Ph.D. research. Hodgson and colleagues at the University of Adelaide compared the accuracy…
Imagine you needed to map the spread of an invasive plant species in a tropical forest. Hyperspectral imaging and LiDAR are great at identifying vegetation, but have their limitations and…
Technology is changing how we investigate and protect planet Earth. The increased portability and reduced cost of data collection and synthesis tools, for instance — from visual and acoustic sensors…
Where deforestation is widespread, sometimes it’s hard to see the (loss of) forest for the (loss of) trees. Global Forest Watch’s online forest change monitoring platform has added a new…
Can technology drive conservation? That was the question Mongabay founder Rhett Butler recently posed to a panel of three specialists on the frontlines of applying technology to conserve key species…
Steven Kotler is a leading thinker on how technology can be employed to halt the global loss of biodiversity. Recently the prolific author and journalist convened a weekend forum for…
