Developing a Low-Cost Raspberry Pi-based Camera Trap for Wildlife Detection

A walk through the Wildlife Data


1. Data Collection:

  • We deployed 4 camera traps for 7 months; from June 2021 to December 2021
  • 8524 images were annotated and published.
  • 8254 images from the Raspberry Pi 2 and 610 from the Pi Zero.
  • 325 images from the Open MV Cam H7
  • All the images are in JPG format

Sample Wildlife Images

2. DSAIL-Porini

DSAIL-Porini dataset

DSAIL Porini Animals

  1. Defassa waterbuck
  2. Sykes' monkey
  3. Common warthog
  4. Bushbuck
  5. Burchell's zebra
  6. Impala
3. Data Annotation and Challenges

The data annotation for the DSAIL-Porini dataset was manual with the following challenges:

  • Animals overlapping in an image
  • Sometimes an animal would have been captured while it's body was in the frame partly.
  • Some images were too far and not visible, especially if the grass had grown too long.
  • Some images were too dark
  • Lens flare: this degraded the quality of some images
  • Time-consuming process
  • Determining the sex of animal species like the zebra, warthog and monkey was difficult.

Data Annotation Example

3. DSAIL-Porini Sample Images
    These ae other samples of images collected from the conservancy

DSAIL-Porini Sample Images

4. Data Analysis
    From the data that was collected, we performes some analysis to get a better understanding of the data.

Data Analysis

5. Value of Data
  • The data collected can be used to:
    • Train machine learning models for classification and Object detection
    • Train and test image-based census algorithms as it includes animal counts
    • Understand animal behaviour
    • Estimate the animal population growth with time
6. Understand animal behaviour
  • We painted the camera traps green to camouflage them.
  • We got more close-ups of animals like the waterbuck.

Camouflaging Camera Traps

7. Camera Trap Placement

    The decision to place the camera traps in these locations was based on:

    1. Locations where mineral supplements were provided for the animals
    2. Trails that led to water holes in the conservancy and areas near the waterholes
    3. Any other place where water would be provided by the wardens.

Camera Trap Placement within the Conservancy

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