via Michigan State University
New facial recognition software and app invented at Michigan State University can help protect endangered primates – more than 60 percent of which face extinction.
Golden monkeys have lost so much habitat, they are only found in a handful of national parks in Africa; farming and illegal hardwood trade in Madagascar is gobbling up the island’s forests and displacing native lemurs; in a recent six-year span, more than 22,200 great apes have been lost due to illegal trade, and yet there have been only 27 arrests.
“Intervention is necessary to halt and reverse these population declines,” said Anil Jain, MSU Distinguished Professor of computer science and engineering and senior author on the study. “Automated facial recognition is one way we can help combat these loses.”
Jain and his doctoral student Debayan Deb harnessed the prowess of his world-renowned biometrics lab – which has helped solve high-profile crimes – to create PrimNet. The program uses convolutional neural networks, artificial-intelligence inspired technology that allows everything from self-driving cars to robots to observe and understand our world.
The results, featured on Cornell University’s arXiv, show that in head-to-head comparisons, PrimNet outperformed state-of-the-art face recognition systems, including SphereFace, FaceNet and LemurFaceID (a predecessor of PrimNet that Jain’s lab also invented).
Along with improved accuracy, PrimNet represents a more cost-effective as well as a far less invasive approach to primate tracking. Traditional tracking devices can be expensive, ranging between $400 and $4,000. Capturing and tagging animals can be time-consuming and can adversely affect the animals. The process can disrupt social behavior, and it can cause stress, injury and sometimes even death.
To complement PrimNet, the team of scientists created an Android app, PrimID. Researchers in the field can now snap a photo of a golden monkey, drop it into the app and identify the primate in question with a high degree of confidence.
In many cases, PrimID will produce a match that’s greater than 90 percent accurate. (With lemurs, PrimID scored an impressive 93.75 percent accuracy.) If it’s not an “exact” match, the app will offer up to five potential candidates from the dataset, corresponding to the top five confidence ratings.
“We compared PrimID to our own benchmark primate recognition system and two, open-source human face recognition systems, and the performance of PrimNet was superior in verification one-to-one comparison and identification, or one-to-many comparisons, scenarios. Moving forward, we plan to enlarge our primate datasets, develop a primate face detector and share our efforts through open-source websites.”
This invention, along with sharing it open sourced, provides another tool to offset wildlife trafficking. For example, if a captured great ape can be photographed and identified, knowing its origin can offer insights to its capture and help improve efforts to deter future crimes.
Learn more: MSU TECHNOLOGY AND APP COULD HELP ENDANGERED PRIMATES, SLOW ILLEGAL TRAFFICKING
The Latest on: Endangered primates
Orangutans of Indonesia extinct for palm oil - The Bobr Times
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November 8, 2018 - “I came to learn that there were all these critically endangered primates, our closest living relatives, that were on the verge of extinction that had never been studied before, some of which there were only line drawings of, no photographs,” said ...Golden langurs find a safe home in Bodoland - The Asian Age
November 4, 2018 - It is also on the list of 25 most endangered primates of the world. The forest officials, wildlife activists and villagers have started demarcation of the area by laying the first boundary pillar and welcome signage of the Habitat Conservation of ...
October 30, 2018 - Now, 18 years later, the villagers have joined hands with the Forest Department again to save the elusive Golden Langur — among the 25 most endangered primates in the world, found only in Assam and Bhutan. On Monday, the first boundary pillar was ...
Golden langurs find home in Assam - Telegraph India
October 29, 2018 - Golden langur, which are on the list of 25 most endangered primates of the world, have finally got a secure landscape of their own. Villagers from 19 fringe villages, comprising an area of 23 square km, which is a contiguous forest patch having Manas ...
It's not pumpkin pie, but bite of the fruit is fine for lemurs - San Francisco Chronicle
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A golden couple of endangered monkeys wins the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2018 - LifeGate
October 23, 2018 - The winning photo of this year's edition depicts a couple of golden snub-nosed monkeys, an endangered species of primates endemic to China, in the temperate forest of the Qin Mountains, the only habitat where this beautiful animal lives. “This image is ...12 Extraordinary Wildlife Photographer Of The Year 2018 Winning Photos - Forbes
October 21, 2018 - The awe-inspiring portrait by the Dutch photographer Marsel van Oosten of a golden snub-nosed monkey couple in the temperate forest of China's Qinling Mountains, the only habitat for these endangered primates, has been awarded the prestigious Wildlife ...Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2018 competition winners are announced - Telegraph.co.uk
October 17, 2018 - ... Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2018 title for his extraordinary image, The Golden Couple, which frames a pair of golden snub-nosed monkeys in the temperate forest of China's Qinling Mountains, the only habitat for these endangered primates.
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The Latest on: Endangered primates
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