Microsoft's AI technology that helps save elephants in the Congo - News Bodha

Acoustic sensors, big data, machine learning and protection of threatened animal species: all these elements go hand in hand in the Elephant Listening Project that is taking place in the jungles of the Republic of the Congo. For 24 hours a day, the sensors collect large amounts of data from the acoustic environment of the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park and neighboring forest areas. Among these data, the sounds of African elephants stand out, whose population has dropped by 30% in just 6 years, mainly due to poaching. But … what is the use of analyzing the sounds of elephants? Well to calculate the variations of its threatened population; but for this it is necessary to identify the sounds produced by the elephants from the rest of the jungle sounds, and then identify the elephants individually in order to count them, an impossible task to be performed from the air . This is possible thanks to Conservation Meetrics, a project promoted by Microsoft within its AI for Earth initiative, based on the use of machine learning to monitor wildlife and evaluate the results of conservation work.