The world is in the middle of a biodiversity crisis. To help tackle this, the WildDrone project is using drones and artificial intelligence (AI) to gather vital information about wildlife. Led by Ulrik Schultz Lundquist at Syddansk Universitet - University of Southern Denmark, the project has secured substantial funding from the EU and other international partners. You can read more in our press release in the comments-section.
WildDrone is set to change the way we protect nature by making drones work automatically. Right now, drones are used to monitor endangered animals, but they need a human pilot and lots of time to review the footage. With WildDrone, autonomous drones will be able to fly and collect data on their own, giving us important insights into wildlife that we couldn’t get before.
The project will take place in both Europe and Africa, where drones will monitor wild animals in Kenya to prevent conflicts with livestock and study marine animals like seals and porpoises in the Wadden Sea, just to name a few places. The goal is to help conservationists and policymakers make better decisions to protect endangered species.
The WildDrone network includes 19 global partners, and they’re training 13 PhD students to develop new solutions for nature conservation.