AI-Powered Acoustic Monitoring: A Game-Changer for Wildlife Conservation

AI monitoring will help protect endangered spider monkeys - Earth.com

Geoffroy's spider monkeys live high in the rainforest canopy, and are difficult to observe. Their shy behavior makes it challenging for scientists to track and protect them effectively. To address this, biologist Jenna Lawson implemented an innovative solution in 2021. Lawson strategically placed 350 audio monitors across the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica. The devices captured the sounds of the forest, allowing her to study the monkeys without disturbing them. This approach provided valuable insights into their movements and behavior. The devices recorded forest sounds for a week, amassing vast data. By feeding this data into artificial intelligence (AI) systems trained to identify spider monkey calls, researchers gained insights that would otherwise take years to uncover. This AI-driven initiative became one of the largest acoustic wildlife studies globally, and revealed troubling signs about the health of the habitats in which these animals live. "They're the most sensitive of the primates that we have here," said Lawson. "The spider monkey would be the first animal to leave when there's signs of trouble. They would be the last animal to come back once forests are restored because they need mature, secondary and primary forest to be able to survive." The monkeys avoid human-altered areas and rely on mature forests, making them sensitive indicators of environmental health. The findings revealed that the monkeys avoid paved roads and plantations, which indicates that there are flaws in the government wildlife corridors which were designed to expand their range. Lawson's work exemplifies how AI can support biodiversity efforts. Previous research has emphasized the potential of machine-learning techniques to manage vast datasets, which would enable faster, cheaper, and more precise ecological studies. However, technical hurdles like humidity-damaged devices and accidental destruction by animals remain. To tackle these challenges, Microsoft's AI for Good Lab introduced "Sparrow" - Solar-Powered Acoustic and Remote Recording Observation Watch. This energy-efficient device, designed to function autonomously for years, transmits data via low-Earth orbit satellites. "Those remote places are also the most important places on the Earth from a biodiversity perspective," said Juan Lavista Ferres, Microsoft's chief data scientist. Sparrow's first test will monitor jaguars, birds, and spider monkeys along Colombia's Magdalena River. By 2025, the project aims to deploy these devices on all continents and make the data accessible to researchers while protecting sensitive location information in order to avoid alerting potential poachers and animal traders. "What we don't want is these devices to ever be used for poachers to understand where the animals are," Lavista Ferres said. AI-powered acoustic monitoring has applications beyond studying rainforests. For instance, it could help sailors detect whale sounds in shipping lanes, thus reducing the risk of collisions. This technology is transformative because it allows scientists to study wildlife without physically intruding on their habitats, which minimizes human influence on animal behavior. "We're reducing our influence on their behavior. And also - they don't want us here," Lawson explained. However, challenges remain. Deploying such systems requires overcoming technical issues like equipment durability and environmental conditions. Equally important is collaboration with local communities. Lawson's work around Costa Rica's Corcovado National Park highlights this need. Landowner support was critical for placing audio monitors outside protected areas to enable a broader understanding of animal behavior. Projects like Jenna Lawson's and Microsoft's Sparrow demonstrate how AI can revolutionize conservation efforts. These initiatives show that AI-powered tools can collect and analyze vast quantities of data, offering insights into animal behavior and habitat health that would be difficult to obtain otherwise. However, realizing their full potential requires overcoming technical challenges, such as maintaining equipment in harsh environments, securing adequate funding, and addressing ethical concerns - including the safe and responsible use of collected data. With 28% of plant and animal species currently at risk of extinction, AI-assisted wildlife monitoring offers a promising way to tackle biodiversity loss. By combining advanced technology with community-driven conservation efforts, scientists can gain a deeper understanding of ecosystems and implement effective protection strategies. Endangered species like Geoffrey's spider monkeys highlight the urgency of these efforts. Their unique role in the ecosystem and their vulnerability to habitat changes emphasize both the challenges of conservation and the hope that innovative solutions can bring. These remarkable creatures remind us of the biodiversity we stand to lose - and inspire action to preserve what can still be saved. Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.

AI will eavesdrop on world's wildest places to track and help protect endangered wildlife

PUERTO JIMÉNEZ, Costa Rica (AP) -- The endangered Geoffrey's spider monkeys that dangle high in the rainforest canopy are elusive and hard for scientists to track. So biologist Jenna Lawson hid 350 audio monitors in trees across Costa Rica's lush Osa Peninsula to spy on them. The devices recorded the sounds of the forest and surrounding countryside for a week, collecting so much data that Lawson could have spent years listening to it all. Instead, she fed it into artificial intelligence systems trained to instantly recognize spider monkey calls and detect where the animals traveled. One of the world's largest acoustic wildlife studies when Lawson began the project in 2021, it revealed troubling findings about the health of a treasured wildlife refuge. More of this AI-assisted wildlife surveillance is "urgently needed" as some 28 per cent of all plant and animal species are now at risk of extinction, according to a paper published in the academic journal Science this summer. Researchers from Dutch and Danish universities showed that machine-learning techniques can "handle huge amounts of data and uncover sound patterns, allowing for faster, cheaper, and better ecological studies" that can aid in biodiversity conservation. But many technical challenges remain. Tech giant Microsoft's philanthropic AI for Good Lab announced this month it is hoping to answer some of those technical challenges with a new kind of hardware and computing system for eavesdropping on the planet's wildest places. "Those remote places are also the most important places on the Earth from a biodiversity perspective," said Microsoft's chief data scientist, Juan Lavista Ferres, in an interview last week by video call from Colombia, where a research team was preparing to test the new approach. Powered by the sun and energy-efficient AI computer chips, the devices can run for years rather than weeks without human intervention. And they can regularly transmit their data online via low-Earth orbit satellites. It's called Sparrow, short for Solar-Powered Acoustic and Remote Recording Observation Watch. Pablo Arbelaez, director of an AI-focused research center at the University of the Andes, said a first Sparrow test will happen in a jungle preserve along Colombia's largest river, the Magdalena. Eventually, the researchers hope to get a better idea of how deforestation -- and efforts to reverse it -- is affecting the population behavior of jaguars, blue-beaked paujil birds, spider monkeys and other endangered species. Another project closer to Microsoft headquarters will monitor forests in Washington state's Cascade Mountains. By late 2025, Lavista Ferres plans to have devices on all continents, from remote corners of the Amazon rainforest to gorilla habitats of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That will then be "open-sourced" to make it accessible to a wide body of researchers in real time, but with measures to obscure sensitive location data. "What we don't want is these devices to ever be used for poachers to understand where the animals are," Lavista Ferres said. It was a concern about encroachments on Costa Rican spider monkey habitat that led Lawson, then at Imperial College London, to undertake her ambitious bio-acoustic study three years ago. She persuaded landowners to let her place recording devices on their properties outside Corcovado National Park, a jewel of Costa Rica's decades-long efforts to preserve biodiversity by encouraging wildlife tourism. "She basically realized the spider monkey is in a really critical situation," said local environmentalist and bug scientist Jim Córdoba-Alfaro. On a follow-up visit last year, he and Lawson trekked across a private reserve with an Associated Press reporter to observe the monkeys and check on the audio monitors. Compared to the charismatic capuchin monkey and the notoriously loud howler monkey -- both commonly seen or heard throughout Costa Rica -- spider monkeys are far more wary of humans and the changes they bring. "They're the most sensitive of the primates that we have here," said Lawson. "The spider monkey would be the first animal to leave when there's signs of trouble. They would be the last animal to come back once forests are restored because they need mature secondary and primary forest to be able to survive." The Royal Society of London in March 2023 published Lawson's findings of what the audio monitors revealed: the spider monkeys weren't going anywhere near paved roads or the plantations harvesting palm oil and teak wood that bisect the region's protected national parks. That meant government-designated wildlife corridors meant to extend their range through and beyond the Osa Peninsula were not working as well as designed. She came back to present those conclusions to local officials. After hours of searching, a troop of spider monkeys appeared -- peering down at the humans who found them. Within moments, they were on their way again -- extending their lanky arms and prehensile tails to grasp at trees and propel themselves across the canopy with spidery acrobatics. Unattended acoustic detection of animal sounds is valuable not just in rainforests but in a wide variety of ecosystems, according to the Science paper published earlier this year. For example, it could help sailors avoid colliding their ships with large baleen whales heard to be passing through a shipping channel. Lavista Ferres said there are still numerous challenges to overcome, from humidity that can fray jungle monitors to elephants in African savannas unintentionally knocking them off a tree. Lawson said using the audio monitors to capture the spider monkey's distinctive whinny enables biologists to study a larger area at lower cost, but also provides a truer account of how the monkeys behave without scientists following them around.

AI eavesdrops on world's wildest places to track, help protect endangered wildlife

PUERTO JIMÉNEZ, Costa Rica -- The endangered Geoffrey's spider monkeys that dangle high in the rainforest canopy are elusive and hard for scientists to track. So biologist Jenna Lawson hid 350 audio monitors in trees across Costa Rica's lush Osa Peninsula to spy on them. The devices recorded the sounds of the forest and surrounding countryside for a week, collecting so much data that Lawson could have spent years listening to it all. Instead, she fed it into artificial intelligence systems trained to instantly recognize spider monkey calls and detect where the animals traveled. One of the world's largest acoustic wildlife studies when Lawson began the project in 2021, it revealed troubling findings about the health of a treasured wildlife refuge. More of this AI-assisted wildlife surveillance is "urgently needed" as some 28% of all plant and animal species are now at risk of extinction, according to a paper published in the academic journal Science this summer. Researchers from Dutch and Danish universities showed that machine-learning techniques can "handle huge amounts of data and uncover sound patterns, allowing for faster, cheaper, and better ecological studies" that can aid in biodiversity conservation. But many technical challenges remain. Tech giant Microsoft's philanthropic AI for Good Lab announced this month it is hoping to answer some of those technical challenges with a new kind of hardware and computing system for eavesdropping on the planet's wildest places. "Those remote places are also the most important places on the Earth from a biodiversity perspective," said Microsoft's chief data scientist, Juan Lavista Ferres, in an interview last week by video call from Colombia, where a research team was preparing to test the new approach. Powered by the sun and energy-efficient AI computer chips, the devices can run for years rather than weeks without human intervention. And they can regularly transmit their data online via low-Earth orbit satellites. It's called Sparrow, short for Solar-Powered Acoustic and Remote Recording Observation Watch. Pablo Arbelaez, director of an AI-focused research center at the University of the Andes, said a first Sparrow test will happen in a jungle preserve along Colombia's largest river, the Magdalena. Eventually, the researchers hope to get a better idea of how deforestation -- and efforts to reverse it -- is affecting the population behavior of jaguars, blue-beaked paujil birds, spider monkeys and other endangered species. Another project closer to Microsoft headquarters will monitor forests in Washington state's Cascade Mountains. By late 2025, Lavista Ferres plans to have devices on all continents, from remote corners of the Amazon rainforest to gorilla habitats of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That will then be "open-sourced" to make it accessible to a wide body of researchers in real time, but with measures to obscure sensitive location data. "What we don't want is these devices to ever be used for poachers to understand where the animals are," Lavista Ferres said. It was a concern about encroachments on Costa Rican spider monkey habitat that led Lawson, then at Imperial College London, to undertake her ambitious bio-acoustic study three years ago. She persuaded landowners to let her place recording devices on their properties outside Corcovado National Park, a jewel of Costa Rica's decades-long efforts to preserve biodiversity by encouraging wildlife tourism. "She basically realized the spider monkey is in a really critical situation," said local environmentalist and bug scientist Jim Córdoba-Alfaro. On a follow-up visit last year, he and Lawson trekked across a private reserve with an Associated Press reporter to observe the monkeys and check on the audio monitors. Compared to the charismatic capuchin monkey and the notoriously loud howler monkey -- both commonly seen or heard throughout Costa Rica -- spider monkeys are far more wary of humans and the changes they bring. "They're the most sensitive of the primates that we have here," said Lawson. "The spider monkey would be the first animal to leave when there's signs of trouble. They would be the last animal to come back once forests are restored because they need mature secondary and primary forest to be able to survive." The Royal Society of London in March 2023 published Lawson's findings of what the audio monitors revealed: the spider monkeys weren't going anywhere near paved roads or the plantations harvesting palm oil and teak wood that bisect the region's protected national parks. That meant government-designated wildlife corridors meant to extend their range through and beyond the Osa Peninsula were not working as well as designed. She came back to present those conclusions to local officials. After hours of searching, a troop of spider monkeys appeared -- peering down at the humans who found them. Within moments, they were on their way again -- extending their lanky arms and prehensile tails to grasp at trees and propel themselves across the canopy with spidery acrobatics. Unattended acoustic detection of animal sounds is valuable not just in rainforests but in a wide variety of ecosystems, according to the Science paper published earlier this year. For example, it could help sailors avoid colliding their ships with large baleen whales heard to be passing through a shipping channel. Lavista Ferres said there are still numerous challenges to overcome, from humidity that can fray jungle monitors to elephants in African savannas unintentionally knocking them off a tree. Lawson said using the audio monitors to capture the spider monkey's distinctive whinny enables biologists to study a larger area at lower cost, but also provides a truer account of how the monkeys behave without scientists following them around. "We're reducing our influence on their behavior," she said. "And also -- they don't want us here."

AI will eavesdrop on world's wildest places to track and help protect endangered wildlife

PUERTO JIMÉNEZ, Costa Rica (AP) -- The endangered Geoffrey's spider monkeys that dangle high in the rainforest canopy are elusive and hard for scientists to track. So biologist Jenna Lawson hid 350 audio monitors in trees across Costa Rica's lush Osa Peninsula to spy on them. The devices recorded the sounds of the forest and surrounding countryside for a week, collecting so much data that Lawson could have spent years listening to it all. Instead, she fed it into artificial intelligence systems trained to instantly recognize spider monkey calls and detect where the animals traveled. One of the world's largest acoustic wildlife studies when Lawson began the project in 2021, it revealed troubling findings about the health of a treasured wildlife refuge. More of this AI-assisted wildlife surveillance is "urgently needed" as some 28% of all plant and animal species are now at risk of extinction, according to a paper published in the academic journal Science this summer. Researchers from Dutch and Danish universities showed that machine-learning techniques can "handle huge amounts of data and uncover sound patterns, allowing for faster, cheaper, and better ecological studies" that can aid in biodiversity conservation. But many technical challenges remain. Tech giant Microsoft's philanthropic AI for Good Lab announced this month it is hoping to answer some of those technical challenges with a new kind of hardware and computing system for eavesdropping on the planet's wildest places. "Those remote places are also the most important places on the Earth from a biodiversity perspective," said Microsoft's chief data scientist, Juan Lavista Ferres, in an interview last week by video call from Colombia, where a research team was preparing to test the new approach. Powered by the sun and energy-efficient AI computer chips, the devices can run for years rather than weeks without human intervention. And they can regularly transmit their data online via low-Earth orbit satellites. It's called Sparrow, short for Solar-Powered Acoustic and Remote Recording Observation Watch. Pablo Arbelaez, director of an AI-focused research center at the University of the Andes, said a first Sparrow test will happen in a jungle preserve along Colombia's largest river, the Magdalena. Eventually, the researchers hope to get a better idea of how deforestation -- and efforts to reverse it -- is affecting the population behavior of jaguars, blue-beaked paujil birds, spider monkeys and other endangered species. Another project closer to Microsoft headquarters will monitor forests in Washington state's Cascade Mountains. By late 2025, Lavista Ferres plans to have devices on all continents, from remote corners of the Amazon rainforest to gorilla habitats of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That will then be "open-sourced" to make it accessible to a wide body of researchers in real time, but with measures to obscure sensitive location data. "What we don't want is these devices to ever be used for poachers to understand where the animals are," Lavista Ferres said. It was a concern about encroachments on Costa Rican spider monkey habitat that led Lawson, then at Imperial College London, to undertake her ambitious bio-acoustic study three years ago. She persuaded landowners to let her place recording devices on their properties outside Corcovado National Park, a jewel of Costa Rica's decades-long efforts to preserve biodiversity by encouraging wildlife tourism. "She basically realized the spider monkey is in a really critical situation," said local environmentalist and bug scientist Jim Córdoba-Alfaro. On a follow-up visit last year, he and Lawson trekked across a private reserve with an Associated Press reporter to observe the monkeys and check on the audio monitors. Compared to the charismatic capuchin monkey and the notoriously loud howler monkey -- both commonly seen or heard throughout Costa Rica -- spider monkeys are far more wary of humans and the changes they bring. "They're the most sensitive of the primates that we have here," said Lawson. "The spider monkey would be the first animal to leave when there's signs of trouble. They would be the last animal to come back once forests are restored because they need mature secondary and primary forest to be able to survive." The Royal Society of London in March 2023 published Lawson's findings of what the audio monitors revealed: the spider monkeys weren't going anywhere near paved roads or the plantations harvesting palm oil and teak wood that bisect the region's protected national parks. That meant government-designated wildlife corridors meant to extend their range through and beyond the Osa Peninsula were not working as well as designed. She came back to present those conclusions to local officials. After hours of searching, a troop of spider monkeys appeared -- peering down at the humans who found them. Within moments, they were on their way again -- extending their lanky arms and prehensile tails to grasp at trees and propel themselves across the canopy with spidery acrobatics. Unattended acoustic detection of animal sounds is valuable not just in rainforests but in a wide variety of ecosystems, according to the Science paper published earlier this year. For example, it could help sailors avoid colliding their ships with large baleen whales heard to be passing through a shipping channel. Lavista Ferres said there are still numerous challenges to overcome, from humidity that can fray jungle monitors to elephants in African savannas unintentionally knocking them off a tree. Lawson said using the audio monitors to capture the spider monkey's distinctive whinny enables biologists to study a larger area at lower cost, but also provides a truer account of how the monkeys behave without scientists following them around. "We're reducing our influence on their behavior," she said. "And also -- they don't want us here."

Rainforest rescue

COSTA RICA (AP) - The endangered Geoffrey's spider monkeys that dangle high in the rainforest canopy are elusive and hard for scientists to track. So biologist Jenna Lawson hid 350 audio monitors in trees across Costa Rica's lush Osa Peninsula to spy on them. The devices recorded the sounds of the forest and surrounding countryside for a week, collecting so much data that Lawson could have spent years listening to it all. Instead, she fed it into artificial intelligence (AI) systems trained to instantly recognise spider monkey calls and detect where the animals traveled. One of the world's largest acoustic wildlife studies when Lawson began the project in 2021, it revealed troubling findings about the health of a treasured wildlife refuge. More of this AI-assisted wildlife surveillance is "urgently needed" as some 28 per cent of all plant and animal species are now at risk of extinction, according to a paper published in the academic journal Science recently. Researchers from Dutch and Danish universities showed that machine-learning techniques can "handle huge amounts of data and uncover sound patterns, allowing for faster, cheaper, and better ecological studies" that can aid in biodiversity conservation. But many technical challenges remain. Tech giant Microsoft's philanthropic AI for Good Lab announced this month it is hoping to answer some of those technical challenges with a new kind of hardware and computing system for eavesdropping on the planet's wildest places. "Those remote places are also the most important places on the Earth from a biodiversity perspective," said Microsoft's chief data scientist Juan Lavista Ferres in an interview last week by video call from Colombia, where a research team was preparing to test the new approach. Powered by the sun and energy-efficient AI computer chips, the devices can run for years rather than weeks without human intervention. And they can regularly transmit their data online via low-Earth orbit satellites. It's called Sparrow, short for Solar-Powered Acoustic and Remote Recording Observation Watch. Director of an AI-focused research centre at the University of the Andes Pablo Arbelaez said a first Sparrow test will happen in a jungle preserve along Colombia's largest river, the Magdalena. Eventually, the researchers hope to get a better idea of how deforestation - and efforts to reverse it - is affecting the population behaviour of jaguars, blue-beaked paujil birds, spider monkeys and other endangered species. Another project closer to Microsoft headquarters will monitor forests in Washington state's Cascade Mountains. By late 2025, Lavista Ferres plans to have devices on all continents, from remote corners of the Amazon rainforest to gorilla habitats of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That will then be "open-sourced" to make it accessible to a wide body of researchers in real time, but with measures to obscure sensitive location data. "What we don't want is these devices to ever be used for poachers to understand where the animals are," Lavista Ferres said. It was a concern about encroachments on Costa Rican spider monkey habitat that led Lawson, then at Imperial College London, to undertake her ambitious bio-acoustic study three years ago. She persuaded landowners to let her place recording devices on their properties outside Corcovado National Park, a jewel of Costa Rica's decades-long efforts to preserve biodiversity by encouraging wildlife tourism. "She basically realised the spider monkey is in a really critical situation," said local environmentalist and bug scientist Jim Córdoba-Alfaro. On a follow-up visit last year, he and Lawson trekked across a private reserve with an Associated Press reporter to observe the monkeys and check on the audio monitors. Compared to the charismatic capuchin monkey and the notoriously loud howler monkey - both commonly seen or heard throughout Costa Rica - spider monkeys are far more wary of humans and the changes they bring. "They're the most sensitive of the primates that we have here," said Lawson. "The spider monkey would be the first animal to leave when there's signs of trouble. They would be the last animal to come back once forests are restored because they need mature secondary and primary forest to be able to survive."

AI will eavesdrop on world's wildest places to track and help protect endangered wildlife

The endangered Geoffrey's spider monkeys that dangle high in the rainforest canopy are elusive and hard for scientists to track. So biologist Jenna Lawson hid 350 audio monitors in trees across Costa Rica's lush Osa Peninsula to spy on them. The devices recorded the sounds of the forest and surrounding countryside for a week, collecting so much data that Lawson could have spent years listening to it all. Instead, she fed it into artificial intelligence systems trained to instantly recognize spider monkey calls and detect where the animals traveled. One of the world's largest acoustic wildlife studies when Lawson began the project in 2021, it revealed troubling findings about the health of a treasured wildlife refuge. More of this AI-assisted wildlife surveillance is "urgently needed" as some 28% of all plant and animal species are now at risk of extinction, according to a paper published in the academic journal Science this summer. Researchers from Dutch and Danish universities showed that machine-learning techniques can "handle huge amounts of data and uncover sound patterns, allowing for faster, cheaper, and better ecological studies" that can aid in biodiversity conservation. But many technical challenges remain. Tech giant Microsoft's philanthropic AI for Good Lab announced this month it is hoping to answer some of those technical challenges with a new kind of hardware and computing system for eavesdropping on the planet's wildest places. "Those remote places are also the most important places on the Earth from a biodiversity perspective," said Microsoft's chief data scientist, Juan Lavista Ferres, in an interview last week by video call from Colombia, where a research team was preparing to test the new approach. Powered by the sun and energy-efficient AI computer chips, the devices can run for years rather than weeks without human intervention. And they can regularly transmit their data online via low-Earth orbit satellites. It's called Sparrow, short for Solar-Powered Acoustic and Remote Recording Observation Watch. Pablo Arbelaez, director of an AI-focused research center at the University of the Andes, said a first Sparrow test will happen in a jungle preserve along Colombia's largest river, the Magdalena. Eventually, the researchers hope to get a better idea of how deforestation -- and efforts to reverse it -- is affecting the population behavior of jaguars, blue-beaked paujil birds, spider monkeys and other endangered species. Another project closer to Microsoft headquarters will monitor forests in Washington state's Cascade Mountains. By late 2025, Lavista Ferres plans to have devices on all continents, from remote corners of the Amazon rainforest to gorilla habitats of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That will then be "open-sourced" to make it accessible to a wide body of researchers in real time, but with measures to obscure sensitive location data. "What we don't want is these devices to ever be used for poachers to understand where the animals are," Lavista Ferres said. It was a concern about encroachments on Costa Rican spider monkey habitat that led Lawson, then at Imperial College London, to undertake her ambitious bio-acoustic study three years ago. She persuaded landowners to let her place recording devices on their properties outside Corcovado National Park, a jewel of Costa Rica's decades-long efforts to preserve biodiversity by encouraging wildlife tourism. "She basically realized the spider monkey is in a really critical situation," said local environmentalist and bug scientist Jim Córdoba-Alfaro. On a follow-up visit last year, he and Lawson trekked across a private reserve with an Associated Press reporter to observe the monkeys and check on the audio monitors. Compared to the charismatic capuchin monkey and the notoriously loud howler monkey -- both commonly seen or heard throughout Costa Rica -- spider monkeys are far more wary of humans and the changes they bring. "They're the most sensitive of the primates that we have here," said Lawson. "The spider monkey would be the first animal to leave when there's signs of trouble. They would be the last animal to come back once forests are restored because they need mature secondary and primary forest to be able to survive." The Royal Society of London in March 2023 published Lawson's findings of what the audio monitors revealed: the spider monkeys weren't going anywhere near paved roads or the plantations harvesting palm oil and teak wood that bisect the region's protected national parks. That meant government-designated wildlife corridors meant to extend their range through and beyond the Osa Peninsula were not working as well as designed. She came back to present those conclusions to local officials. After hours of searching, a troop of spider monkeys appeared -- peering down at the humans who found them. Within moments, they were on their way again -- extending their lanky arms and prehensile tails to grasp at trees and propel themselves across the canopy with spidery acrobatics. Unattended acoustic detection of animal sounds is valuable not just in rainforests but in a wide variety of ecosystems, according to the Science paper published earlier this year. For example, it could help sailors avoid colliding their ships with large baleen whales heard to be passing through a shipping channel. Lavista Ferres said there are still numerous challenges to overcome, from humidity that can fray jungle monitors to elephants in African savannas unintentionally knocking them off a tree. Lawson said using the audio monitors to capture the spider monkey's distinctive whinny enables biologists to study a larger area at lower cost, but also provides a truer account of how the monkeys behave without scientists following them around. "We're reducing our influence on their behavior," she said. "And also -- they don't want us here." © 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

AI will eavesdrop on world's wildest places to track and help protect endangered wildlife

Researchers from Dutch and Danish universities showed that machine-learning techniques can "handle huge amounts of data and uncover sound patterns, allowing for faster, cheaper, and better ecological studies" that can aid in biodiversity conservation. But many technical challenges remain. Tech giant Microsoft's philanthropic AI for Good Lab announced this month it is hoping to answer some of those technical challenges with a new kind of hardware and computing system for eavesdropping on the planet's wildest places.The endangered Geoffrey's spider monkeys that dangle high in the rainforest canopy are elusive and hard for scientists to track. So biologist Jenna Lawson hid 350 audio monitors in trees across Costa Rica's lush Osa Peninsula to spy on them. The devices recorded the sounds of the forest and surrounding countryside for a week, collecting so much data that Lawson could have spent years listening to it all. Instead, she fed it into artificial intelligence systems trained to instantly recognize spider monkey calls and detect where the animals traveled. One of the world's largest acoustic wildlife studies when Lawson began the project in 2021, it revealed troubling findings about the health of a treasured wildlife refuge. More of this AI-assisted wildlife surveillance is "urgently needed" as some 28% of all plant and animal species are now at risk of extinction, according to a paper published in the academic journal Science this summer. Researchers from Dutch and Danish universities showed that machine-learning techniques can "handle huge amounts of data and uncover sound patterns, allowing for faster, cheaper, and better ecological studies" that can aid in biodiversity conservation. But many technical challenges remain. Tech giant Microsoft's philanthropic AI for Good Lab announced this month it is hoping to answer some of those technical challenges with a new kind of hardware and computing system for eavesdropping on the planet's wildest places. "Those remote places are also the most important places on the Earth from a biodiversity perspective," said Microsoft's chief data scientist, Juan Lavista Ferres, in an interview last week by video call from Colombia, where a research team was preparing to test the new approach. Powered by the sun and energy-efficient AI computer chips, the devices can run for years rather than weeks without human intervention. And they can regularly transmit their data online via low-Earth orbit satellites. It's called Sparrow, short for Solar-Powered Acoustic and Remote Recording Observation Watch. Pablo Arbelaez, director of an AI-focused research center at the University of the Andes, said a first Sparrow test will happen in a jungle preserve along Colombia's largest river, the Magdalena. Eventually, the researchers hope to get a better idea of how deforestation - and efforts to reverse it - is affecting the population behavior of jaguars, blue-beaked paujil birds, spider monkeys and other endangered species. Another project closer to Microsoft headquarters will monitor forests in Washington state's Cascade Mountains. By late 2025, Lavista Ferres plans to have devices on all continents, from remote corners of the Amazon rainforest to gorilla habitats of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That will then be "open-sourced" to make it accessible to a wide body of researchers in real time, but with measures to obscure sensitive location data. "What we don't want is these devices to ever be used for poachers to understand where the animals are," Lavista Ferres said. It was a concern about encroachments on Costa Rican spider monkey habitat that led Lawson, then at Imperial College London, to undertake her ambitious bio-acoustic study three years ago. She persuaded landowners to let her place recording devices on their properties outside Corcovado National Park, a jewel of Costa Rica's decades-long efforts to preserve biodiversity by encouraging wildlife tourism. "She basically realized the spider monkey is in a really critical situation," said local environmentalist and bug scientist Jim Cordoba-Alfaro. On a follow-up visit last year, he and Lawson trekked across a private reserve with an Associated Press reporter to observe the monkeys and check on the audio monitors. Compared to the charismatic capuchin monkey and the notoriously loud howler monkey -- both commonly seen or heard throughout Costa Rica - spider monkeys are far more wary of humans and the changes they bring. "They're the most sensitive of the primates that we have here," said Lawson. "The spider monkey would be the first animal to leave when there's signs of trouble. They would be the last animal to come back once forests are restored because they need mature secondary and primary forest to be able to survive." The Royal Society of London in March 2023 published Lawson's findings of what the audio monitors revealed: the spider monkeys weren't going anywhere near paved roads or the plantations harvesting palm oil and teak wood that bisect the region's protected national parks. That meant government-designated wildlife corridors meant to extend their range through and beyond the Osa Peninsula were not working as well as designed. She came back to present those conclusions to local officials. After hours of searching, a troop of spider monkeys appeared - peering down at the humans who found them. Within moments, they were on their way again - extending their lanky arms and prehensile tails to grasp at trees and propel themselves across the canopy with spidery acrobatics. Unattended acoustic detection of animal sounds is valuable not just in rainforests but in a wide variety of ecosystems, according to the Science paper published earlier this year. For example, it could help sailors avoid colliding their ships with large baleen whales heard to be passing through a shipping channel. Lavista Ferres said there are still numerous challenges to overcome, from humidity that can fray jungle monitors to elephants in African savannas unintentionally knocking them off a tree. Lawson said using the audio monitors to capture the spider monkey's distinctive whinny enables biologists to study a larger area at lower cost, but also provides a truer account of how the monkeys behave without scientists following them around. "We're reducing our influence on their behavior," she said. "And also - they don't want us here."

AI-assisted wildlife surveillance is eavesdropping on endangered spider monkeys

The endangered Geoffrey's spider monkeys that dangle high in the rainforest canopy are elusive and hard for scientists to track. So biologist Jenna Lawson hid 350 audio monitors in trees across Costa Rica's lush Osa Peninsula to spy on them. The devices recorded the sounds of the forest and surrounding countryside for a week, collecting so much data that Lawson could have spent years listening to it all. Instead, she fed it into artificial intelligence systems trained to instantly recognize spider monkey calls and detect where the animals traveled. One of the world's largest acoustic wildlife studies when Lawson began the project in 2021, it revealed troubling findings about the health of a treasured wildlife refuge.