AI camera-trap sorting cuts Indigenous rangers' image workload in Arnhem Land

Indigenous rangers in the Warddeken Indigenous Protected Area in West Arnhem, Northern Territory, ran the AI animal-detection model MegaDetector over 1,572 hours of camera-trap data from their Mayh (animal) wildlife program, cutting the images needing review from 925,088 to 172,290 (an 81.4% drop in image count) and processing time from six months to two months, Charles Darwin University said Oct. 13. Average processing time fell from 52.6 to 41.8 hours a fortnight, and rangers shifted the time to land management, species identification and language documentation, per the university; “It is important to talk to our elders so we use technology the right way on Country,” senior ranger Suzanna Nabulwad said. The work by Warddeken Land Management, CDU and Australia’s national science agency CSIRO followed consultation on implementation and safeguards, and appeared in the journal Conservation Science and Practice in July.