Nesher Bari
Using data analytics to boost the protection of griffon vultures.
Griffon vulture in flight.
Photo by Stefan Krause, Germany – Wikimedia Commons
Ecological importance
Vultures have an important ecological role as scavengers. They eliminate harmful substances from the environment, mitigating the spread of disease that may potentially harm human health and the economy.
Population threats
There is a significant likelihood that this species will become locally extinct in Israel in the near future unless effective conservation action is implemented. The main reason for this population decline is poisoning, both intentional and otherwise. However, several other threats such as accidents involving power lines and wind turbines have been identified.
Monitoring
Animal tracking technologies create unique opportunities for understanding animal ecology and behaviour. Equipping vultures with GPS transmitters enables us to closely monitor their movements, understand their habits, and detect when individuals are no longer moving and potentially injured to act accordingly.
Alert system
Biologists are developing an alert system that analyses the location, accelerometer data and other relevant information in real time to inform conservation management on the ground.
Wildlife.ai is developing a data analysis and machine learning approach to identify the events in which the vultures are in danger.
This will help biologists to quickly identify the situations in which a vulture is in danger so that they can locate it and save it.
Our AI system aims to improve the current alert system by reducing the number of false alerts that biologists receive, therefore allowing them to manage conservation efforts in a better way.
Nesher Bari Intro: Using Machine Learning for Vulture Conservation
Vultures are an important part of the ecosystem, as they help to clean up after dead animals. [...]
