🦈 AI and drones tracks and protects great white sharks

Sharks have a key role in ocean health but sadly they are in need of conservation. To protect them (and people in coastal communities) a team of oceanographers and AI specialists in California observe the sharks habits and behaviour using drones and AI to aid conservation efforts.

Project SharkEye uses drone technology and AI to detect sharks in the water. They share the information with local public safety officials and communities to help prevent attacks, but also to protect the sharks. By building a database with this information, marine scientists can easier predict when and where elevated activity from the sharks will occur and then they can inform conservation efforts.

The process to gain this information goes like this. Project SharkEye flies drones over the nearshore part of the ocean to capture footage of what’s happening in the water below. The team then uses Salesforce’s Einstein Vision AI tool to scan the video to detect great white sharks with 95% accuracy. The AI model can detect different species of sharks using its length.  

The team behind SharkEye us a collaboration between marine biologists at UC Santa Barbara's Benioff Ocean Initiative, computer scientists at San Diego State University and Salesforce AI Research.

When technologies like drones and AI are combined and used in for example conservation efforts, it can ease and help scientists and researchers receive information otherwise hard to attain. And therefore making a better, safer and brighter future come sooner.

If you'd like to watch a video about the project, you can do it HERE!