Keeping a Closer Eye on Seabirds with Drones and Artificial Intelligence

Scientists at Duke University and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) used a deep-learning algorithm--a form of artificial intelligence--to analyze more than 10,000 drone images of mixed colonies of seabirds in the Malvinas/Falkland Islands off Argentina's coast. The Malvinas/Falklands are home to the world's largest colonies of black-browed albatrosses (Thalassarche melanophris) and second-largest colonies of southern rockhopper penguins (Eudyptes c. chrysocome). Hundreds of thousands of birds breed on the islands in densely interspersed groups. The deep-learning algorithm correctly identified and counted the albatrosses with 97% accuracy and the penguins with 87%. All told, the automated counts were within 5% of human counts about 90% of the time.