A mobile phone application has been developed to stream images of animals from camera traps in Kenya, in a bid to get citizen help in monitoring animal diversity.
Already being used as an online or mobile safari, the Instant Wild App has been specifically designed to aid conservation by allowing viewers to help identify images of animals on their mobiles or Web browsers.
The free application has been released by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), and also streams images from camera traps in Sri Lanka and Mongolia. Cameras are to be established in Nepal and Indonesia, as well.
ZSL and its partners are running a network of 50 traps around the world. By configuring five of the cameras to upload images to Instant Wild, they have invited citizen conservationists to help in the task of identifying different animals - given the sheer magnitude of the task.
"If enough people identify something as a lion or an elephant shrew, we can be pretty sure that's what it is," says Jonathan Baillie, conservation programme director at EDGE of Existence, the ZSL programme that hosts Instant Wild. "When there's high certainty, we don't have to check the data. If there's low certainty, we look at the data. It reduces the amount of time needed by hours and hours."
By using technology in this way, and inviting viewers to match a picture with the relevant image in the Field Guide, ZSL hopes to enable its scientists to analyse data and trends in species more quickly, and to come to faster conclusions as to whether threatened animals are increasing or decreasing.
The programme claims this knowledge is essential for effective conservation, with camera traps a tool widely used in conservation work. A motion sensor detects any movement within a certain range, prompting the camera to take a photograph.
The EDGE of Existence programme is a global conservation initiative that uses a scientific framework to identify the world's most Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) species. Such species have few close relatives and are often extremely unusual in their behaviour, looks and genetic make-up.
The aim of the programme is to ensure that local stakeholders, governments and other conservation organisations take action to secure the future of these species, with a number of poorly known and neglected EDGE species selected for conservation attention every year. Prize sightings in Kenya include African wild dogs and black rhinoceros.
The application also offers an opportunity for those unable to take a safari trip to view wild animals in their Kenyan environment. "It's amazing for people to just be sitting in their office or walking in the street and have these images pop up," adds Baillie. "I find myself in board rooms and conferences and hotels a lot, and I'd rather be in the field."
The application can be downloaded here.
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