Welcome from the Chair and General Manager
Kia ora koutou,
While the global biodiversity crisis continues to pose significant threats to our taonga (treasure) species, Wildlife.ai is demonstrating how community-built AI tools can amplify conservation efforts.
This year marks a pivotal moment for our organisation. We have transitioned from one-off exploration projects to end-to-end solutions used by conservation professionals, educators and local communities.
Three of our projects are now field-ready and already being used to make conservation work more efficient and effective, and to engage our next generation in the work to protect te taiao (environment).
We are building the next generation of conservation monitoring not just through technological innovation, but through close partnership with professionals and communities who design, test, and implement these tools. When someone uses our tools and says, “That was easy”, we know we’ve got the right balance between robust data science and intuitive, participatory design.
But this work isn’t just for experts. We continue to inspire the next generation of kaitiaki (guardians) through our Wild About AI programme, with 250 ākonga (students) completing the course this year.
We have also strengthened our organisation by improving systems and processes, enabling us to use our resources more efficiently and communicate our impact more clearly. We are building a more sustainable foundation by growing revenue from service contracts and products, which reduces our reliance on one-off grants. This includes new pathways for business support and fundraising.
Internally, monthly product showcases now bring our team and community together to share progress and learn, ensuring we stay connected as we grow.
Last year’s progress reflects the dedication of our Data Rangers, staff and partners, who share our belief that open-source technology can help scale conservation efforts globally. This work is only possible because of our people, so a heartfelt thank you to you all. We are incredibly fortunate to have a team rich in knowledge, passion, and positive energy, driving both our governance and operations.
Our goal for 2026/27 is simple: to make Taranaki and Aotearoa New Zealand a leading example of how technology – when developed in partnership with communities and conservation experts – can support a thriving environment.
Joshua Yellin
Chair
Dr Victor Anton
General Manager
OUR PURPOSE
Use artificial intelligence to accelerate wildlife conservation
OUR FOCUS AREAS
CONSERVATION
We develop and use AI-powered solutions to efficiently and ethically monitor wildlife
EDUCATION
We inspire, educate, and activate more people at the intersection of conservation and AI
COMMUNITY
We build strong partnerships and create communities to ensure long-term conservation
FOUNDATION
We build strong operational systems to support a sustainable organisation in the long term
OUR PARTNERS
Thank you to our funders, partners, and supporters; your backing is essential to protecting te taiao and our taonga species for future generations.
A special thanks to our volunteers, whose diverse contributions, from classifying fish on Zooniverse to coding and helping with the governance, keep our daily operations moving.
This collective effort makes our impact possible, and we are incredibly grateful for your support.
CONSERVATION
WILDLIFE WATCHER
We have evolved the Wildlife Watcher into a practical, scalable product that addresses long-standing challenges in camera trapping. Unlike traditional cameras, Wildlife Watcher uses visual motion detection, allowing it to capture cold-blooded and small species that are often missed. With continued improvements to power efficiency, false trigger reduction, and on-device machine learning, the system is becoming a practical, scalable tool for conservation teams on the ground.
This year, we focused on strengthening the technology. Our team refined how the cameras detect motion and developed a pipeline that allows users to easily get the latest software updates. The team engineered the devices to record images with standardised metadata, ensuring they can be easily processed and analysed using the user’s preferred software tools. This makes Wildlife Watcher adaptable to a wide range of conservation contexts and workflows.
We also prioritised the experience of the people using the technology. A new mobile app, now available on iOS and Android, removes the burden of manual data collection. It automatically records location and time in the background, allowing rangers to simply deploy the camera and focus on their mahi. The result is cleaner, more consistent data that is immediately ready for analysis of species distribution and population trends.
Our hardware is now professional and field-ready. We partnered with Kamahi for our custom electronics and Rewild for our 3D printed cases. These collaborations let us iterate quickly and set strong partnerships for scaling up the manufacturing process.
With 30 units now built, Wildlife Watcher has moved into its first field deployments. These field deployments will be our focus over the next 12 months, ground-truthing the systems and identifying improvements.
Initial projects are underway at Travis Wetland in partnership with Lincoln University, as well as the preparation to monitor animals at sites across Atawhenua (Fiordland), Ōtākou (Otago), Taranaki and Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland).
Our early adopters include Te Papa Atawhai (New Zealand Department of Conservation), the Southern Lakes Trust and the New Zealand Herpetological Society, who will be using these devices to monitor elusive species such as giant wētā and macroinvertebrates in urban and remote environments. These deployments are critical for validating the technology in real-world conditions and ensuring it meets the needs of conservation practitioners.
SPYFISH AOTEAROA
Marine reserves are a critical tool for protecting biodiversity and ocean health, yet monitoring their effectiveness remains resource-intensive. Each Baited Underwater Video (BUV) deployment captures 30 minutes of seafloor activity, and across Aotearoa, hundreds of videos are collected each year. By streamlining how this data is processed, Spyfish Aotearoa enables an estimated 90% faster, more consistent insights into species abundance and ecosystem health. Previously, limited resources meant fewer than six marine reserves could be monitored annually, but with Spyfish, it is now possible to monitor over 40 reserves across the country.
This year, Spyfish Aotearoa was a finalist in the NZ Hi-Tech Awards in the ‘Public Good’ category. This is a significant achievement, and we are delighted that the project has been recognised in this way.
Thanks to the support from Te Papa Atawhai, Spyfish Aotearoa has evolved into a connected set of tools that bring together data, people, and machine learning to better understand fish populations in Marine Protected Areas.
Marine biologists from Te Papa Atawhai now have the tools to clearly see how reserves protect species like blue cod and snapper. They are telling us that Spyfish makes their work so much easier, and it gives them the data they need to tell the success story of marine reserves.
As part of this work, we finished organising and cleaning existing data. The team cleaned and consolidated into a single standardised database +1,500 historical deployments that were spread across spreadsheets and storage systems. This created a strong foundation for long-term monitoring and analysis.
We also developed tools to support rangers in the field. Mobile and desktop applications, co-designed with Te Papa Atawhai, now make it easier to record and upload new data. From the moment a camera is deployed, information is captured consistently and synced automatically, reducing manual effort and improving data quality.
In addition, we have advanced our machine learning capabilities. Leveraging the computational power of Mahuika, New Zealand’s high-performance computing platform, we trained AI models to recognise key species such as snapper and blue cod from underwater footage. Alongside this, we built a flexible pipeline that connects data collection, video uploads, species detection, and visualisation through dashboards, turning raw footage into usable insights.
Community participation remains a core part of the system. Through our Zooniverse platform, citizen scientists help analyse video clips by identifying and counting species. This year, the community contributed over 73,000 classifications, bringing the total to an outstanding 280,000 since the project started. The community support has significantly accelerated data processing while also generating valuable training data to improve our AI models.
Together, these components form a three-step workflow: AI processes the bulk of the footage, citizen scientists review and validate uncertain cases, and experts focus on the most complex observations. This approach reduces the time required for analysis while maintaining scientific accuracy.
We are also expanding in scope. In addition to marine reserves, we are now collaborating with the University of Auckland to assess the biodiversity benefits of mussel farms, demonstrating how the system can be applied across different marine environments.
Looking ahead, our focus is on connecting all components into a fully integrated, versatile and easy-to-maintain end-to-end system. Over the coming year, we will expand the AI capabilities, continue involving the community and experts in data sampling and processing, and expand the range of applications to different underwater projects and environments.
EDUCATION
WILD ABOUT AI
This year, our educational resources evolved from a hands-on pilot programme into a comprehensive, standalone e-learning course for kaiako (educators). Designed for ākonga (students) aged 10–14, the programme introduces how artificial intelligence can be used to protect te taiao, with a strong focus on Taranaki’s marine environments and the principle of kaitiakitanga.
We focused on building a resource that is both engaging for ākonga and practical for kaiako. The programme is now delivered through six structured lessons, each 60 to 90 minutes long, and aligned with the refreshed Te Mātaiaho (New Zealand Curriculum). Its cross-curricular design allows kaiako to integrate learning across science, digital technologies, social sciences, literacy, and numeracy – making it flexible and easy to adopt within existing classroom programmes.
A key priority was ensuring the programme is kaiako-friendly. Created by educators for educators, it includes detailed lesson plans, learning intentions, success criteria, and supporting resources. This enables kaiako to confidently lead the programme independently, reducing the need for in-class delivery by our team and significantly improving scalability.
The programme is grounded in an authentic Aotearoa context. By exploring te taiao from a Māori perspective and emphasising kaitiakitanga, ākonga connect scientific learning with cultural values, making the experience both relevant and memorable.
This year, ākonga from ten different schools across Taranaki were “virtually diving” into the reserves to help biologists process footage through our Wild About AI programme. With 250 ākonga completing the course this year, we turned curiosity and learning into real-world conservation data.
Of the ākonga completing the programme, 68% expressed interest in continuing their education in AI and conservation. It was special to see the shift from ākonga viewing AI as a tool for everyday tasks to recognising its potential for environmental stewardship.
Looking ahead, our goal is to continue expanding access and empowering more young people to become kaitiaki and future technology leaders. With a changing funding environment and education sector, we will explore different models for funding and resourcing.
COMMUNITY
As a charity, Wildlife.ai is committed to building community benefit alongside our technology development work. To overcome the challenges that te taiao is facing, we need all hands on deck, and we firmly believe that collaboration amplifies impact.
To that end, we continue to share information, ideas and expertise across both the tech and conservation sectors.
Community-building starts at home, and where we are based locally in Taranaki, we are proud to be a member of Wild For Taranaki, where we continue to build our connections with conservation organisations across Taranaki. We are also focusing on building partnerships with mana whenua, exploring areas where we can collaborate to support and enhance kaitiakitanga (guardianship).
Throughout Aotearoa and abroad, we continue to foster relationships with biologists, conservationists, and technologists. We travelled to the South Island to connect with staff at Te Papa Atawhai, as well as researchers, to build connections and explore opportunities to work together. Staff have also participated in conferences, webinars, podcasts and written blogs to share what we do and how we do it, so that others can learn from our work.
Through building on our communications strategy, we are growing the general public’s awareness of who we are and what we do, sharing the message that technology is a key part of tackling our conservation and environmental challenges.
FOUNDATION
As Wildlife.ai continues to grow, we are prioritising strong systems, sustainable funding, and thoughtful expansion to support our long-term impact.
This year, we invested in our organisational foundations. A new governance and operational portal now centralises our policies and processes, ensuring our people, data, and partners are well protected and capable as we scale up. This platform supports a proactive review of our structures to ensure we strictly meet the requirements of the new Charities Act, with our broader governance review completion expected in July 2026.
At the same time, we are building a more sustainable financial model. By increasing revenue from expert service contracts and products, we are reducing our reliance on one-off philanthropic grants and creating a more stable base for future growth. We have also opened new pathways for businesses committed to environmental giving to support and collaborate with us through our 1% for the Planet and Benevity memberships.
Operationally, we are strengthening our team to match our ambitions. We have welcomed Dinnie Moeahu as our Mātauranga Māori Adviser and Amanda Clinton-Gohdes as our Operations and Communications Adviser, to deepen our connection with Taranaki communities and improve how we share our story.
While our broad digital traffic decreased as we pivoted from general awareness to deep engagement, our community remains strong. Our Data Rangers contributed over 1,600 expert volunteer hours this year.
We have also invested in how we work together. Monthly product showcases have brought the Wildlife.ai team and community closer, creating space to share progress, learn from each other, and continuously improve. Strengthening these internal connections will remain a priority as we scale.
Looking ahead, our focus is on building a resilient organisation that can support both innovation and impact. By combining strong foundations with a collaborative approach, we are positioning Wildlife.ai to grow sustainably while continuing to serve the needs of conservation communities.
