OSU Using AI To Identify Wildlife

An Oregon State University Undergrad has developed a way to use artificial intelligence to identify species captured on trail cameras.  Owen Okuley said the A-I works similarly to how a human learns to identify images.

“You’re shown something and told what it is and you kind of associate the two. The same is true for an image recognition model, where you basically show what is something and what isn’t something.”

Okuley added his research found AI successfully identified bighorn sheep, even from grainy images … and he believes it’ll be useful for fish and wildlife agencies.

"You could spend the very limited resources we tend to have paying for somebody to manually sort that, or you could use an AI that can sort them automatically in a couple days.”

OSU said agencies in California are already using the program to track bighorn in areas like the Mohave Desert.

If you have a story idea for the PNW Ag Network, call (509) 547-1618, or e-mail glenn.vaagen@townsquaremedia.com