Wildlife monitoring in Australia could get a boost from a new platform that uses AI and computer vision to speed up the processing of millions of camera trap images being collected across the country. The national initiative named the Wildlife Observatory of Australia (WildObs) is a way to collect, store and share camera trap data at scale, while improving collaboration between scientists, governments and environmental groups, according to the WildObs website. The platform is being developed by researchers at the University of Queensland (UQ), with backing from the Australian Research Data Commons, Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation and the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. Camera traps are commonly used to monitor wildlife globally: they’re easy to set up and can be left at locations for long periods, providing an invaluable window into the natural world. Across Australia, thousands of projects collect millions of images, Matthew Luskin, associate professor at the UQ School of the Environment and director of WildObs, said in a statement. However, processing the images and identifying species takes time, money and computing power. WildOBS plans to speed it up. “In conservation, timing matters and detecting problems early can mean the difference between recovery and extinction,” Luskin said. WildObs requires users of the platform to upload images, which get stored and processed in the cloud. The platform’s models have been trained specifically to identify species found in Australia and can help track biodiversity trends, monitor invasive species and identify conservation priorities, according to the UQ statement. “In one collaborative space,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

On the Greek islet of Formicula, researchers have found rare Mediterranean monk seals will take refuge in an air-filled “bubble cave,” according to a recent study. This type of hidden chamber, accessible via underwater passages, allows the seals to breathe, and possibly hide from tourists, the researchers said. Mediterranean monk seals (Monachus monachus), the world’s rarest pinniped, are the only seals found in the Mediterranean Sea. Fewer than 1,000 of them remain, according to the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority.     Historically, these seals hauled out on open coastal beaches to rest, molt and give birth to pups. But with increasing human disturbance from tourism, fishing and land development, they retreated to marine caves along the Mediterranean coastline to rest and breed. Study lead author Joan Gonzalvo of the Ionian Dolphin Project at the Tethys Research Institute in Italy described the “ideal cave” to Mongabay as one with a pool, a dry beach for hauling out, an entrance corridor and protection from adverse weather and choppy seas. Typically, these caves are accessible by entrances above or below water level. During a habitat assessment in the Inner Ionian Sea Archipelago, the team was setting up a camera to monitor one of these “comfortable” marine caves on Formicula when they discovered that an underwater corridor connected to it led to a second smaller chamber. This “bubble cave” had water and a pocket of air on top, but no dry beach or platform to haul out. The team placed an underwater camera in the…This article was originally published on Mongabay