In previous work we thought we had the ultimate predator detection camera. But our goal is to detect all predators so we have chosen to develop a higher resolution heat camera. Here's a reminder of why we want to detect all predators:
Cacophony Blog
2 Oct 2017 - 15:22
2 Oct 2017 - 11:25
It's been a little longer than usual since our last update. We've been busy!
18 Sep 2017 - 11:47
We achieved some fantastic milestones last week!
11 Sep 2017 - 13:54
Here's another look into what we've been up to recently.
1 Sep 2017 - 15:29
It's been a busy week for the Cacophony Project, with good progress on many fronts.
Project Manager
As noted earlier, the project now has a new lead developer & project manager (me!) and I've spent much of the week getting up to speed. I've been reviewing the current state of our hardware and software efforts, meeting various advisors and contributors, and getting a grasp of our immediate and longer term goals. It's been fantastic to meet everyone and I'm really excited to be onboard. There's a real energy around the project.
28 Aug 2017 - 10:30
My name is Menno Finlay-Smits and I start today as the Lead Developer and Project Manager for the Cacophony Project. We've got a real chance at solving the problem of invasive predators in New Zealand and I'm really excited to be part of the effort.
27 Jul 2017 - 16:29
July update - now that's sounding like I might do regular updates...
What have I been doing?
27 Jul 2017 - 10:16
Spark have been a fantastic supporter of The Cacophony project.
All of our data is now being hosted on their servers in at Computer Concepts Ltd
Spark are providing free data upload for the project so all sound and video files use the excellent Spark network.
21 Jul 2017 - 14:46
The NEXT Foundation and ZIP have recently invested in the Cacophony Project and this will enable us accelerate our development plans.
As part of the NEXT investment they also put together a short video that very nicely explains what we are up to. They did a great job with this and it has proved very helpful in explaining concisely what we do.
13 Jul 2017 - 16:53
The latest innovation we are testing is a camera that can rotate around, up and down to follow predators. There are two main benefits of using this. First, we can see much more than with a static camera. The second, main long-term reason is that this will allow us to implement a kill mechanism that will not require the predator to enter a trap.
Video 1: First prototype of tracking camera
22 Jun 2017 - 10:10
Below are a few observations from our experiments with live capture traps. As noted in our previous blog post, they seem to work better than other traps we have tried. We know they are not the long-term solution, but we need some devices that are more guaranteed to take out predators while we trial different audio lures. We don't want predators to learn and ignore audio lures that we test.
Below is a video showing a few interesting things about the live capture. We explain these in more detail below.
8 Jun 2017 - 09:08
Some traps seem 10 times more effective than others (and other interesting things we have learned from our new camera tool)
The main purpose of our camera and trapping over the last four weeks has been to test the new camera set up and get as many videos of predators as possible. We can then tag them in a way that artificial intelligence can learn the difference between predator species.
30 May 2017 - 12:29
We have made some improvements to the video capture tool we have been developing to make it better able to identify all predators in the New Zealand environment. We have been testing our device next to a standard commercial trail camera. These are typically designed for hunting deer and pigs etc, so they are not tuned for smaller mammals (unless up very close). The device we are using has the following advantages that are described in more detail below:
12 May 2017 - 11:01
We are very happy to announce that the Next Foundation and Zero Invasive Predators have made a significant contribution that will enable us to accelerate the development of tools for recognising, luring and eliminating predators.
26 Apr 2017 - 15:59
I once heard that when you think an IT project is 99% done, you are probably half way there. A lot of work has been done on the Cacophonometer over the last few months and it is now ready for you to try it out.
Recap
The Cacophonometer is an app that runs on Android phones that makes regular sound recordings. It can be used to gather ‘base-line’ and ongoing data of the bird song near the device.
Recent modifications
8 Mar 2017 - 08:49
Removing voices from birdsong.
One of the problems for the Cacophony Project to resolve is stopping the device from recording human voices (to avoid any issues with privacy). I've been performing some backyard experiments with some promising results!
One of the problems for the Cacophony Project to resolve is stopping the device from recording human voices (to avoid any issues with privacy). I've been performing some backyard experiments with some promising results!
1 Feb 2017 - 09:34
We are hiring so would love to hear from you if you would like to join the team to help make New Zealand predator free. Job description below.
Lead Developer and Project Manager
9 Jan 2017 - 11:10
The short video below was presented at TEDx is a summary of the Cacophony Project. Feel free to share with anyone you think may be interested and sign up to our newsletter to hear about the latest developments (see bottom of page for email sign up).
Video 1: TEDx talk summarising The Cacophony Project
6 Dec 2016 - 11:11
My name is Tim Hunt and I am a lecturer in Information Technology at Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec) in Hamilton, New Zealand. I first heard about The Cacophony Project, and the work that Grant Ryan and others are doing, at this year's ITx conference in Wellington. Grant's presentation outlined the 'big picture' aims of the project - to return New Zealand's bird life to its former glory, by using technology to help eradicate the pests responsible for killing so many birds.
28 Nov 2016 - 10:10
A team is looking to set up a company to sell and distribute devices and services that use the research The Cacophony Project has been working on. The device records background bird song every hour for a few minutes and then uploads the data to the cloud. This way a reliable time series can be collected and there will be increasingly sophisticated ways that these will be able to be analysed to give you real objective data on the trends of bird life in your area.
3 Nov 2016 - 11:10
The Cacophony Project was fortunate to win the science category of New Zealand Open source awards this year.
1 Oct 2016 - 15:29
“Genetic engineering”. The very mention of it is enough to provoke a furious waving of hands followed by a litany of rhetoric that wouldn’t be out of place in the Old Testament.
16 Sep 2016 - 10:10
The Cacophony Project is not a science project in the same way it is not a business project (link). However there are lots of ways the tools created by our project will be able to be used by scientists. Below are a few examples that we think are particularly interesting.
16 Sep 2016 - 09:42
The Cacophony Project is completely open source. The hard/software component can be used gratuitously in accordance with their licenses. Given this, how can you possibly create a business from it? The short answer is the same way people build businesses selling water
7 Sep 2016 - 13:57
A new device with both heat and infra-red cameras connected to the cloud looks to be a more automated and sensitive tool for monitoring predators
24 Aug 2016 - 13:13
Just a quick shout out to Spark. Some folks at Spark heard about our project and immediately offered to help. From the first meeting we walked out with some sim cards with free data to play around with. No paper work, no delay, just a quick “yeah that sounds good – go for it”. We can see lots of ways their team and services can help accelerate this project over time.
Many thanks to Andrew Pirie, Paul Deavoll and Andrew Leckie from Spark.
24 Aug 2016 - 13:12
Our design philosophy is to create a device that can:
- Identify 100% of the predators out there – unless you can do this there is no way to know how well you are progressing (looks like we are very close to a device that can do this - link)
- Lure 100% of the predators – there are lots of possibilities with using digital lures (link)
- Kill 100% of the predators
5 Aug 2016 - 12:20
This project initially started with the goal of creating a tool to dramatically improve monitoring how the environment responds to predator eradication. In New Zealand we are lucky that the bird song is literally the canary in the mine:
5 Aug 2016 - 12:17
Firstly, we love the government’s new announcement of the target to be predator free by 2050. Bold, ballsy and just the sort of thing New Zealand should do. What we would like to do here is a little analysis of why we think it will happen sooner than that.