Spyfish Aotearoa
A citizen science and machine learning approach to identify fish in baited underwater videos.
School of Blue maomao in Poor Knights Islands Marine Reserve.
Photo by the New Zealand Department of Conservation
A biodiversity hotspot
How many?
Counting how many fish are in the ocean and how different threats like fishing, pollution and climate change influence marine ecosystems is a great challenge.
Baited underwater video
A camera pointing to a bait is an ideal non-invasive method to monitor fish populations.
Biologists use this method to know more about the abundance of carnivorous and scavenger fishes.
Hours and hours of footage
Baited underwater videos provide crucial information on the populations of fish species. However, the manual classification of the footage is time consuming.
Wildlife.ai is developing a citizen science and machine learning approach to classify target fish species from underwater footage recorded around Aotearoa/New Zealand.
Finalists for NZ Hi-Tech Awards 2026
Wildlife.ai is proud to be finalists in the New Zealand Hi-Tech Awards 2026 in the category of Best Hi-Tech Solution for the Public Good, for Spyfish Aotearoa - an end-to-end AI-powered solution which is transforming how we monitor and protect our marine environment.
Spyfish Aotearoa in Action – Making Life Easier For Department of Conservation Rangers
Recently we went out on the boat with Te Papa Atawhai - the Department of Conservation (DOC) to see Spyfish Aotearoa in action and hear more about how it is helping to streamline their processes, and make life easier for DOC rangers.
How Spyfish Aotearoa Is Automating Marine Protected Area Monitoring
Over the past 3 years, Wildlife.ai and Te Papa Atawhai - the Department of Conservation have built a range of tools to efficiently monitor fish populations in Marine Protected Areas in Aotearoa New Zealand. We have created a pipeline to clean and standardise existing data, built apps for uploading new data videos and field information, trained an AI model to recognise snapper and blue cod from baited underwater footage and built a dashboard to present the results.
Wildlife.ai Product Showcase – March 2025
On March 31, the Wildlife.ai team gathered again for the monthly Product Showcase, sharing updates, challenges, and collaborative successes across three key projects: Wildlife Watcher, Spyfish Aotearoa, and Wild About AI.
Wildlife.ai Product Showcase – February 26, 2025
On February 26, 15 team members gathered for the Wildlife.ai Product Showcase to share project updates, [...]
