A combination of crowdsourcing and computer vision could
identify individuals within endangered populations.
Keeping track of individuals in an endangered population of
animals is a cumbersome and time-consuming task.
Conservationists physically tag animals in the wild to
better follow them over time. But tagging can be intrusive for many species,
and difficult to accomplish in larger populations. As an alternative,
scientists have photographed animals in their natural environments and catalogued
the images, along with information such as individuals’ dimensions and
geographic locations.