Computers successfully trained to identify animals in photos

A computer model developed at the University of Wyoming by UW researchers and others has demonstrated remarkable accuracy and efficiency in identifying images of wild animals from camera-trap photographs in North America.

The artificial-intelligence breakthrough, detailed in a paper published in the scientific journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution, is described as a significant advancement in the study and conservation of wildlife. The computer model is now available in a software package for Program R, a widely used programming language and free software environment for statistical computing.

"The ability to rapidly identify millions of images from camera traps can fundamentally change the way ecologists design and implement wildlife studies," says the paper, whose lead authors are recent UW Department of Zoology and Physiology Ph.D. graduate Michael Tabak and Ryan Miller, both of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Center for Epidemiology and Animal Health in Fort Collins, Colo.

The study builds on UW research published earlier this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in which a computer model analyzed 3.2 million images captured by camera traps in Africa by a citizen science project called Snapshot Serengeti. The artificial-intelligence technique called deep learning categorized animal images at a 96.6 percent accuracy rate, the same as teams of human volunteers achieved, at a much more rapid pace than did the people.

In the latest study, the researchers trained a deep neural network on Mount Moran, UW's high-performance computer cluster, to classify wildlife species using 3.37 million camera-trap images of 27 species of animals obtained from five states across the United States. The model then was tested on nearly 375,000 animal images at a rate of about 2,000 images per minute on a laptop computer, achieving 97.6 percent accuracy -- likely the highest accuracy to date in using machine learning for wildlife image classification.

The computer model also was tested on an independent subset of 5,900 images of moose, cattle, elk and wild pigs from Canada, producing an accuracy rate of 81.8 percent. And it was 94 percent successful in removing "empty" images (without any animals) from a set of photographs from Tanzania.

The researchers have made their model freely available in a software package in Program R. The package, "Machine Learning for Wildlife Image Classification in R (MLWIC)," allows other users to classify their images containing the 27 species in the dataset, but it also allows users to train their own machine learning models using images from new datasets.

The lead author of the PNAS article, recent UW computer science Ph.D. graduate Mohammad Sadegh (Arash) Norouzzadeh, is one of multiple contributors to the new paper in Methods in Ecology and Evolution. Other participating researchers from UW are Department of Computer Science Associate Professor Jeff Clune and postdoctoral researcher Elizabeth Mandeville of the Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit.

Other organizations represented in the research group are the USDA's National Wildlife Research Center, Arizona State University, California's Tejon Ranch Conservancy, the University of Georgia, the University of Florida, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Montana.

Bears and other wild animals are in your yard to stay

Recently, a friend of mine was traveling on Route 10 between Delhi and Stamford. Suddenly, a large black bear came out into the road with an ear of corn hanging out of its mouth. My friend asked me later about the number of bears in the area.

Black bears have moved north from the Catskills over the past few years. And why not? There is an increased amount of suitable habitat that allows them to live in our backyards. Let's face it - animals have the ability to adapt.

Fifty to seventy-five years ago there were far more farms than there are today. Every available field was mowed and tilled to provide food for cows and crops for market. Heck, from West Oneonta to Morris there were once 17 or 18 working farms. Today there are only a couple. The small family farm has long disappeared.

I live on our old farm. It has been in my family for 148 years. Our barn was built to hold Jersey cattle that were smaller than the large, milk-producing Holsteins of today. At the peak we could only milk 34 cows, but my ancestors made a good living for the times, even providing butter for several mom-and-pop stores in Oneonta.

Like our farm the pastures have grown up to brush lots and trees and many of the fields have gone out of production, thus creating habitat for animals.

For some reason there was a sudden influx of bears in the area a few years ago. They were looking in windows in Morris, wandering the roads and streets and checking out backyards. Bears were becoming a nuisance. They tore down bird feeders and destroyed farmers' crops.

The DEC has learned over the years that you just don't live trap nuisance bears and move them to a different area. They carry on the same tactics in their new area, creating problems. That left one solution – open a hunting season and let hunters control the problem. It works.

I had a neighbor call me one afternoon. "I've got a bear on my back porch."

Jokingly I responded, "Feed him jelly donuts. He's really fond of them."

The neighbor wasn't thrilled with my joke, so I told him to send him up to my house.

A farmer just outside of Poland had bears destroying acres of corn each night, so he put up signs reading "Bear Hunters Wanted." It was the only way to stop them. It helped.

There were rumors going around that the DEC was releasing the bears into our area. I heard stories that New Jersey was controlling its growing bear population by trapping them and releasing them in the Catskills at night. I heard the same thing about the coyotes and the mountain lions that sometimes roam our area.

The DEC doesn't have to release them. They have moved in on their own to fill a niche and have increased in numbers ever since. Coyotes were not brought in to reduce the deer population, and it was not funded by insurance companies to reduce the number of deer-car accidents.

In many areas where the population is encroaching on the animal's habitat, they learn to adapt to civilization. Just drive up West Street towards the colleges. There are more deer in the roads than pedestrians. People have e-mailed me, "They're eating all my plants and shrubs."

My response was to get the city let bow hunters harvest some of them. She didn't like that answer.

Let's face it. Wild animals are here to stay. Enjoy watching them and stock up on jelly donuts.

How some animals use the Earth's magnetic field to navigate

COME wintertime thousands of garden warblers, pied flycatchers, and bobolinks—all tiny songbirds—will cross the equator heading south for sunnier climes. It is an epic trip. For guidance they will rely on the position of the sun and stars, as well as smells and other landmarks. They may also use the Earth's magnetic field, thanks to a sense known as magnetoreception. Theories about it have long attracted quacks. Franz Anton Mesmer, a German doctor working in the late 1700s, argued that living things contain magnetic fluids, which, when out of balance, lead to disease. His idea of “animal magnetism” was debunked and similar ones viewed with scepticism. But magnetoreception has drawn more serious attention in the past half-century. A pioneering study in 1972 demonstrated that European robins respond to magnetic cues. The list of animals with a magnetic sense has since grown to include species in every vertebrate category, as well as certain insects and crustaceans. Some may use it simply to orient, such as blind mole rats. Others—salmon, spiny lobsters, thrush nightingales—may use it for migration and homing, alongside other sensory cues. How do they do it?

Think of the Earth's magnetic field as shaped by a bar magnet at the centre of the planet. From the southern hemisphere, magnetic field lines curve around the globe and re-enter the planet in the northern hemisphere. A few features of the field vary predictably across the surface of the Earth. Intensity is one variable—the Earth's magnetic field is weakest at the equator and strongest at the poles. Another is inclination. The angle between the field lines and the Earth changes with latitude, so an animal migrating northwards from the equator encounters steadily steeper inclination angles on its route.

Animals can potentially derive two types of information from the geomagnetic field: the direction in which they are facing, and where they sit relative to a goal. Directional information is the more basic, as polarity lets animals orient north or south as if using a compass. But this has limited utility over long distances. A strong ocean current can sweep turtles off track; winds can do the same for migratory birds. Determining latitude relative to an end point is more useful, and magnetic cues like intensity and inclination may help. Take loggerhead sea turtles (pictured). They swim from the coasts of Florida into the North Atlantic gyre, circling it for years before returning to their natal beaches to breed. Straying from the course can have deadly consequences. One study put hatchlings in test sites that simulated the magnetic fields at three points on the outer edge of the gyre. In all three cases, the turtles reoriented to stay within its confines. Another study, published in April, showed that turtles nesting on far-off beaches with similar magnetic properties (like two on either side of the Florida peninsula, at similar latitudes) had more in common genetically than with those nesting closer by. Turtles, it would seem, can get lost while searching for their natal beach. They may swim to one farther afield but more magnetically familiar and breed there.

Questions still abound. The evidence for a magnetic sense is mostly behavioural; researchers have yet to find receptors for it. Part of the problem is that the cells could be located anywhere inside an animal, since magnetic fields pass freely through tissue. (By contrast, cells that enable the other senses, like sight and smell, make contact with the external environment.) Two theories of magnetoreception dominate. One says animals have an intracellular compass. Another suggests that chemical reactions influenced by the geomagnetic field produce the sense. For researchers, this means more questions than answers.

Crowd was 'Out Here With Animals' Saturday

Twin Towns Area residents and visitors were "Out Here With Animals" Saturday, Aug. 25.

From 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Tractor Supply Company, Wahpeton, hosted animal adoptions, a pet supplies drive, live music and more in its parking lot. All proceeds benefit Chahinkapa Zoo and 4-H of Richland and Wilkin Counties.

"We're very grateful to have Mike (Rosley) and TSC as a great community partner," Zoo Director Kathy Diekman said. "It's fun to see the other animals from different places. This is outstanding and we're really looking forward to continuing this partnership."

Youth of all ages enjoyed petting and playing with the livestock provided by Brad Abel. The petting zoo included five goats, a donkey, a pig, three ducklings and three guinea chicks.

Guests also viewed the 11 antique tractors on site and a vendor fair. Everything from canned goods to glass works was available for purchase.

"We've got vendors from as far as Fergus Falls," Rosley said. "There's 100 racks of ribs (to eat)."

Throughout August, Tractor Supply Company is accepting new sealed food, toys, cleaning supplies, bed, scratching posts, leashes and bowls. They'll be donated to area animal rescue facilities and shelters.

"The supplies drive is an important component to Out Here With Animals because it allows our customers who don't have the ability (to adopt) to still give back in a much needed way," stated a TSC press release.

If all of the activities weren't enough, Out Here With Animals included music from Mike Morris of The Roosters, nail trimming and checkups for animals and a dunk tank sponsored by Heritage Insurance Services. Eric Issendorf, head coach of the North Dakota State College of Science Wildcats football team, was among the community members who volunteered to be dunked.

"It slipped," joked Sarah Abel of the Wahpeton Breckenridge Area Chamber of Commerce as she helped a youth send Issendorf into the water.

Dozens of animals saved thanks to new animal sanctuary in Jonesborough

JONESBOROUGH, TN (WJHL)- It's a place where every animal has a heartbreaking story but where they all get to live happily ever after. Tilted Tavern Animal Sanctuary opened this year in Jonesborough.

The goal is to rescue and provide care for farm animals who have been abused or neglected. It's a unique mission the Jones family said never expected to take on.

About a year ago, in her role as a veterinarian, Brooke Jones took a phone call from someone looking for a place to take a hen in bad shape. "They asked if we know anyone that would help and so I said sure," Tilted Tavern co-owner Brooke Jones said with a laugh.

After the hen, "We rescued one cow and a chicken and now we have around 50 animals," Tilted Tavern co-owner Robert Jones said. "We would've never thought we would be here."

The husband and wife team have turned their historic 50-acre farm into Tilted Tavern Animal Sanctuary.

"Right now we have chickens, ducks, cows, horses, a goat, and a pig, and two roosters," Robert Jones said.

He said animals like Skittles the goat and Dumbleboar the pig have come along way since they first arrived. Like most of the animals here they have a heartbreaking story.

"We've had neglect, we've had animal cruelty, our pig is from an animal fighting ring," Robert Jones said.

Without the animal sanctuary, "Some animals would've just died at where they were at the beginning before we got there, others would've been euthanized," Robert Jones said.

Once an animal is rescued, if they are not fit for adoption they come here where they are rehabilitated, loved, and safe.

"The fact that I can not only help the community out but also help animals and have something for them is really wonderful for me personally," Brooke Jones said.

Now after living through nightmare situations, the animals get to to live out their days on this peaceful Jonesborough farm.