Scientists discover carbon ‘fingerprint’ in tree rings
As they grow, trees and other plants take carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the atmosphere and, through photosynthesis, use it to build their tissues by converting it to a type…
Conservation Technology News
Wildtech provides news and information on how the conservation community can better leverage technology. We are a non-profit initiative.
eDNA may offer an early warning signal for deadly frog pathogen
When Colleen Kamoroff and her graduate advisor Caren Goldberg collected water samples to look for the DNA of non-native fish species, they could not have guessed the potential importance of…
Understanding bird behavior key to developing risk reduction technologies
Years of studying birds and their relationship with their environment taught John Swaddle, professor of biology at the College of William & Mary, the importance of understanding animals’ instincts and…
From galaxies far, far away to endangered species just over the hill
An unlikely group of experts have teamed up to apply software developed to find distant stars to help solve problems in conservation ecology. The “astro-ecology” project at Liverpool Johns Moores…
New remote-sensing technique used to determine carbon losses in Sub-Saharan Africa
Research published yesterday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution finds that pressures from human activities and climate change caused the African continent to lose as much as 2.6 billion…
You don’t need a bigger boat: AI buoys safeguard swimmers and sharks
Sharks are in trouble worldwide, with one study estimating that people kill up to 100 million of them each year through illegal fishing, shark finning, and bycatch. The negative public…
AI can ‘help us move mountains’ for people and planet, Watson developer says
Neil Sahota is an IBM Master Inventor and World Wide Business Development Leader in the company's Watson Group. He works to create solutions powered by Watson, the supercomputer that he…
Tech and collaboration are putting indigenous land rights on the map
Dwarfed both in size and fame by the Amazon rainforest, the Gran Chaco, South America’s second largest vegetation complex, is a diverse mix of thorny dry forest and palm savannahs…
How to build a Guardian: students learn about making technology work in the field
Hundreds of students from science and technology programs around the city of Los Angeles, California have begun participating in a hands-on effort to apply ingenuity and technology to protect the…
Radar returns to remote sensing through free, near-real-time global imagery
Satellite imagery has transformed how we assess changes in forest cover. The standard optical sensors carried by Earth-orbiting satellites capture the energy from sunlight reflected off objects on the Earth’s…
In blood-sucking leeches, scientists find a genetic snapshot of local wildlife
The arduous task of assessing animal populations in the wild takes plenty of sweat and tears. Now a group of scientists is adding blood to that mix, in an innovative…
Where does your timber come from? Genetic analysis may soon tell you
Researchers have identified a genetic analysis technique that pinpoints the harvest location of trees—a breakthrough that could help officials detect illegally traded timber. The multi-national research team tested the potential…
Penguin mega-colony discovered using satellites and drones, raising scientists’ hopes
Scientists have discovered a 'supercolony' of Adélie penguins in Antarctica's remote Danger Islands, raising hopes that the bird's population isn't declining as rapidly as previously thought. The discovery, which is…
Drone photography allows scientists to measure marine mammals without a catch
Scientists in Antarctica recently tested a novel technique to measure the body size and mass of wildlife — aerial photography. The method, used on leopard seals (Hydrurga leptonyx), allows scientists…
Detecting disasters on community lands in the Amazon: film highlights indigenous struggle
Tens of thousands of indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon have been fighting decades of contamination of their natural resources by foreign and domestic oil companies. Oil spills, leaky pipelines,…
Making mountains out of molehills: system builds public-access big data from many sources
What if we had a public library for scientific data? The proliferation of sensors monitoring the Earth—from space to planes, drones, vehicles, park rangers, camera traps, and even animal tracking…
Coral reef monitoring takes to the skies: drone-mounted hyperspectral cameras help scientists assess health of coral reefs
Why are scientists turning to aerial images to monitor the health of ecosystems found beneath the ocean’s surface? Coral reefs support millions of species ranging from single-celled algae to sharks…
Drones enable fast, accurate wildlife counts, study shows
Jarrod Hodgson is one of very few scientists who have used rubber ducks as part of their Ph.D. research. Hodgson and colleagues at the University of Adelaide compared the accuracy…
Code for cod and tech for tuna at the 2018 Fishackathon
Technological advances have revolutionized the global fishing industry. Depth-finders and sonar have taken much of the guesswork out of locating fish, and larger, more durable nets and trawls have drastically…
Scientists deploy DNA analysis and radiocarbon dating in latest salvo against ivory trafficking
The United States, a major ivory market The sale of ivory across international boundaries has been banned since 1990, when the African elephant was listed among species prohibited for commercial…
