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When Will Hughesman visits the Milwaukee Zoo this month, he’ll be observing the animals in an entirely new way. Hughesman and members of the Land Stewardship Working Group (LSWG) will be assessing a new non-invasive technology that may be the key to accurately counting and identifying large mammals in Alberta’s boreal forest.

Hughesman, chair of the LSWG, will be visiting the zoo before heading to Austin, Texas, in March, to evaluate the second of four top mammal-counting technologies identified through an incentive challenge issued in early 2011. Incentive challenges, also called open sourcing, are a new way of finding solutions to problems by offering financial support to anyone, anywhere who has a workable solution.

“This process provided us with about six really great ideas, and throughout the year the LSWG focused in on the four technologies that show the most promise for Alberta’s boreal forest,” says Hughesman. “Now that we are in the technology development and testing phase, we believe it is important to see these technologies in action.”

First on the list is a late February visit to the Milwaukee zoo, which exhibits appropriate ungulate species for testing including woodland caribou.

Hughesman, regulatory affairs manager at Nexen, is quick to point out the four technologies that made the short list do not involve methods currently used in the oil sands region such as collaring with GPS/telemetry units, scat detection dogs or visual aerial surveys. However, cameras and flyovers may be an element in a number of the new technologies.

“We think we have a good range of options that involve new technologies or improvements to existing technologies that may move them up several notches in terms of accuracy, timeliness and economics. The ultimate goal is to develop a cost effective method to monitor wildlife in the oil sands at a regional scale. This information will help us better manage industrial impacts on wildlife.”

The four technologies currently being evaluated by LSWG originate in the U.S. as well as Europe. They include:

• improvement of current forward-looking Infrared (FLIR) technology;
• military technology combined with Light Detection and Range (LIDAR), an optical remote-sensing technology that can measure distance or other properties of a target using laser pulses;
• multi-spectral imaging including polarized light, involving highly refined camera hardware; and
• unmanned aerial vehicles or drones.

Hughesman says the first two technologies involve flyovers while the third one involves a novel sensor package unlike anything now in use. Some of the ideas focus on technology while others concentrate on technology application, which may mean combining the technology and skills of multiple groups to come up with the best solution.

“We feel like we’re really zeroing in on something that will have application to the boreal forest,” Hughesman says.

The mammal counting incentive challenge was OSLI’s first incentive challenge project and was managed by NineSigma, one of the most experienced and advanced providers in this emerging field. NineSigma posted details of the OSLI challenge online to about 1,500 groups in the academic and research world.

Comments

• Jeremy Reid
  February 23, 2012, 11:05 am
  Update from Milwaukee County Zoo testing:
  
  OSLI visited our polarized light specialists testing military technology on animals at the Milwaukee County Zoo on Tuesday Feb 21. Preliminary results appear promising for differentiation of species based on multi-spectral + polarized light image signatures – almost like a light reflection finger-print (or hoof-print :) ). Scaling up to the region by combing with other technologies we are investigating will be another challenge…
  
  Species recorded include woodland caribou, moose and deer with more to follow in the coming week.

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