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IMAGE: Elephants in woodland as seen from space. Green rectangles show elephants detected by the algorithm, red rectangles show elephants verified by humans.
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Credit: Satellite image (c) 2020 Maxar Technologies
Editor's Note: In the fifth graf, the number of African savannah elephants left in the wild was updated to 415,000.
For the first time, scientists have successfully used satellite cameras coupled with deep learning to count animals in complex geographical landscapes, taking conservationists an important step forward in monitoring populations of endangered species.
For this research, the satellites Worldview 3 and 4 used high-resolution imagery to capture African elephants moving through forests and grasslands. The automated system detected animals with the same accuracy as humans are able to achieve.