AI helps scientists map rare woodland bats
Scientists conducted the largest woodland bat survey using artificial intelligence to analyze millions of calls across the nation.
Researchers placed recording devices in three hundred and ten woodlands to capture ninety eight million bat calls over three years. Without advanced software this massive data collection would have required more than thirty years to process manually.
The red listed Barbastelle bat appeared in south west England including Somerset Devon Cornwall and Dorset during the extensive monitoring period. These elusive creatures roam ancient forests but their difficult nature made tracking them challenging for researchers without modern tools.
Kate Jones from University College London stated that artificial intelligence has transformed how researchers can monitor wildlife on a large scale. She described the project as a nice story of AI for good while noting previous methods were simply not feasible.
The Bat Conservation Trust called the project unprecedented because huge volumes of data were analyzed efficiently. They said Somerset serves as a key stronghold for various bat species found across the UK area today.
“AI has fundamentally changed the scale at which we can monitor wildlife.”