We’re looking for expert trackers to help us protect mountain lion, using non-invasive FIT to document their footprints and hence their distribution. With our colleague Jonah Evans, from Texas Parks and Wildlife, we’re developing the FIT algorithm to identify and protect areas that mountain lion need to survive.
Poop or Prints? We report in the Duke University Nicholas School blog reports on new technology that will help to monitor Giant Panda, and thus could protect all the other species in their incredibly biodiverse habitat: http://blogs.nicholas.duke.edu/guest/tracking-the-giant-panda/ Panda feces – basically a clump of semi-digested bamboo!
FIT brings bushman skills and JMP software together – it’s now easy to spot cheetahs! Read about our upcoming collaboration with the Naankuse Conservation Foundation Screenshot of the new FIT add-in in JMP data visualisation software.
Have you ever wondered how to collect footprints from Giant Panda but were a little afraid to ask? Our video, filmed on location during our recent visit to China, and with original music designed especially for the pandas, shows exactly how we do it.
Why we embraced footprints…. and where we go from here! Read the article from the Spring 2014 issue of Duke Environment magazine: Monitoring endangered species, without further endangering them
The iconic and beautiful mountain lion (cougar) ranges widely across the Americas, but population estimates are often unreliable. In Texas, where unregulated hunting still exists, it’s a particular challenge. We’ve just had a paper accepted by the Wild Felid Monitor on how footprint identification might help provide effective monitoring….https://wildtrack.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Monitoring-mountain-lion-using-footprints-WFM-March-2014.pdf
While in Beijing we were interviewed by a group of very incisive IT journalists. They grilled us, and our host Bryan Yan from JMP China, for more than 3 hours…but their feedback has been wonderful! See more for links to the articles from CSDN, CTOCIO and CCIDNET, with translations.
China often gets a bad rap in the west on conservation issues. But on our recent visit we were struck by impressive new initiatives. First up – a series of billboards are given prominent position at Beijing airport…
How captive giant pandas are helping their wild counterparts. Our super-effiicient Chinese colleagues have already started collecting panda footprints from the Ya’an centre near Chengdu. These will form the foundation of the training dataset, from which we will develop the FIT algorithm that will help monitor pandas in the wild.
China blog 7: Many giant panda experts told us it would be impossible to get good panda footprints in the wild….either because of deep leaf litter, or deep snow, or uneven terrain….but we were not deterred. Our experience has shown that unless biologists are specifically looking for footprints, they don’t…