How Conservationists Are Using AI And Big Data To Aid Wildlife

Give Jason Holmberg 10,000 zebra photos and he'll find the specific individual zebra you're looking for, no problem. "It could take two minutes," he said. Holmberg is executive director of the nonprofit Wild Me. The Portland-based organization has developed a digital tool called Wildbook that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to expedite wildlife identification. In tandem with citizen science, Wildbook is able to condense years of human work -- like photographing thousands of animals and identifying each by hand -- into a matter of weeks.