AI-Powered Cameras Could Help Save Snow Leopards

Snow leopards, the world's most elusive and endangered predator, are on the brink of extinction. Their population in the wild is a mere 4,000 to 6,000, and the snow leopard is fighting poaching, retaliatory killing by herders, and climatic change. In Pakistan-occupied Gilgit-Baltistan, the big cats are being hunted seasonally by locals because they attack their domestic animals. To counter this growing threat, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) partnered with Pakistan's Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) to develop AI-based camera technology that will protect snow leopards as well as the livelihood of local farmers.

The initiative, in which cameras are installed in the mountainous region of Gilgit-Baltistan, employs artificial intelligence to determine whether the snow leopard is there or not. As soon as it removes the snow leopard, it delivers a mobile phone short message service to villagers asking them to move their livestock out of the struck zones. The project aims at preventing the snow leopards from killing the livestock, and it is an aftermath and leads to the villagers killing the latter in revenge and hence further lowering the latter's population.

The batteries and solar panels power the cameras to run amidst the rough climate of the region, which lies almost 3,000 meters above sea level. The software of the AI has been programmed to learn on detecting humans, animals, and snow leopards but importantly, the reclusive predators. The technology has been upgraded multiple times over the past three years to refine it further. Though not without flaws, the system has already been used to spot snow leopards in various recorded footage and has proved valuable for conservationists.

As encouraging as the results were hoped to be, however, the technology itself does have its shortcomings. It took time and experimenting to position the cameras in this remote and rocky environment, not to mention deciding on batteries and protective coatings suitable for it. Among some of the technical challenges that have been faced are landslide damage to the solar panels, and the cameras cannot function in the regions where the cellular reception is weak, though they will continue recording data until the network can be resumed.

Another serious challenge is also winning the confidence and cooperation of the surrounding communities. The villagers were suspicious of the technology early on and tampered with the cameras by cutting their wires or covering them with blankets. There were cultural concerns as well, and specifically concerning privacy because the cameras were placed near areas that women frequented on a regular basis. To combat these, the project team has kept extremely close touch with the people and ensured complete permission is obtained and problems have been addressed.

Despite occasional resistance, the project has witnessed progressively more villagers becoming receptive to collaborating with it after they realized how vital it was to conserve snow leopards. Having the predators stabilizes the ecosystem by controlling ibex and blue sheep populations, thus balancing the overgrazing of the grazing land. It is not all local farmers who are persuaded, however, as many other farmers lost many sheep to snow leopard kills, so the struggle to maintain their livelihoods was even harder.

Climate change has accelerated the issue, with warmer temperatures pushing agriculture and grazing range higher up into the mountains, putting human activity directly into conflict with snow leopard habitat. This has put human contact with snow leopards more at risk, adding more pressure on conservation-local community relations.

WWF hopes that the AI cameras will be a game-changer in protecting the snow leopards. Apart from monitoring the occurrence of the big cats, WWF is also conducting trial runs on other deterrents such as using odors, noise, and light to scare off snow leopards from human settlements. The pilot exercises, due to take off later this year, will provide additional information on how to reduce conflict between humans and snow leopards.

While the AI-enabled cameras themselves are not going to solve all of the problems for snow leopards, they are a critical part of the overall process of protecting these creatures. WWF's initiative signals that wildlife and local community conservation must be solved with creative approaches to their inextricably complex problems. Through technology and community outreach, the goal is to make humans and snow leopards peaceful cohabitants, and their survival continues from generation to generation.

Source/Credits:
BBC News | Azadeh Moshiri, Usman Zahid, and Kamil Dayan Khan