ecology

Drought Disrupts Wildebeest Migration

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Picture of Wildebeest and her newborn calf in Tarangire National Park.

In Summary: Drought has left wildebeests and zebras of the Tarangire Ecosystem in northern Tanzania without food or water on their calving grounds, disrupting their normal migration and forcing them to give birth near the Tarangire River. Tanzania is experiencing a drought after the short rainy season failed to deliver much-needed rainfall during recent months. … Read more

Proposed Forest Thinning Will Sabotage Natural Forest Climate Adaptation and Resistance to Drought, Fire, and Insect Outbreaks

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The USDA Forest Service is proposing widespread forest thinning on our public lands across the West in a misguided attempt to reduce the impact of drought, fire, and insects (see National Forest Restoration Projects, Sierra Nevada National Forest Land Management Plan Revisions, news articles). These logging schemes are the latest in a series of Forest … Read more

We Need You To Become A Giraffe Hero

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Since the announcement that giraffes are Vulnerable to Extinction, many concerned people have asked me what they can do to help save giraffes. Giving money and/or time to conservation groups like Wild Nature Institute is a great first action to help giraffes. Whatever your skill set, there is an important place for you in the … Read more

Big Data for Big Animals: Part 3

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Wild Nature Institute Giraffe Research Uses Big Data Tools Part 3: Velocity, Volume, and Variety in Tall Data for Giraffe Conservation Giraffes are big animals, so scientists have turned to big data solutions for giraffe conservation.  Researchers from the Wild Nature Institute are conducting one of the largest-scale big mammal studies ever undertaken by studying … Read more

Big Data for Big Animals: Part 2

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Randomly selected giraffe torso detection results. Note that even giraffes which are small in the image or giraffes which are partly occluded by bushes, are found successfully.

Giraffe are the tallest animal on earth, so naturally scientists have turned to big data solutions for giraffe conservation.  Researchers from the Wild Nature Institute are conducting one of the biggest large mammal studies ever undertaken by studying births, deaths, and movements of more than 2,000 giraffe across a 4,000 square kilometer landscape in the … Read more

Big Data for Big Animals

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Giraffe torso photos used to identify more than 3000 individual giraffes as part of the world's largest giraffe study.

Wild Nature Institute Giraffe Research Uses High Tech Big Data Tools Part 1: Matching Giraffe Photos Using Virtual Supercomputers Giraffe are the tallest animal on earth, so it is no surprise that scientists have turned to them to apply big data solutions to wildlife conservation.  Researchers from the Wild Nature Institute are conducting one of … Read more