All posts in Bioacoustic Unit

Making WildTrax: It’s (Not) a Kind of Magic – Behind the Screen

WildTrax is one major piece of software–your one-stop online platform for managing, storing, processing, sharing and discovering biological and environmental sensor data. In other words, WildTrax is a repository for data from autonomous recording units (ARUs), remote cameras, and other wildlife surveying methods from across Canada. In fact, WildTrax currently hosts over 66 million photos [...]

Easy as 1-2-3, but 1-2-3-4-5 might be better: How long should a point count take?

Péter Sólymos, a statistical ecologist with the ABMI, Boreal Avian Modelling project, and the U of A, brings us a guest post about his team’s new paper on point count methods for sampling boreal birds. Humans attach more value to rare things, but in conservation biology, rarity often implies an elevated risk. For example, smaller [...]

The BERA Project: Advancing Ecological Recovery Monitoring in Alberta

What do you get when you put together a room full of experts in remote sensing, environmental science, and the Internet of Things? It sounds like the start of a joke, but the answer is the Boreal Ecosystem Recovery and Assessment (BERA) Project. Hailing from academia, industry, government, and ENGOs including the ABMI, this diverse [...]

The University of Alberta and the ABMI launch the Bioacoustic Unit!

The Bayne Lab at the University of Alberta and the ABMI’s Application Centre are pleased to announce a new partnership: The Bioacoustic Unit! Many people are concerned about their environment and the wildlife in it.  However, for many wildlife species we don’t have the information we need to make informed decisions about natural resources and [...]

Better Environmental Management Through Monitoring: The Story of the Yellow Rail in the Lower Athabasca

This story originally appeared in AEMERA’s Newsletter, published March 31, 2015. “The approval holder shall provide a plan or participate in the development of a plan for the monitoring and mitigation of the Yellow Rail (Coturnicops noveboracensis) by [given date] to the satisfaction of the Director…” – Approval condition for oil sands mine project The [...]

Wiretapping the Woods

Imagine standing in the middle of a forest. How far into the forest do you think you could hear? 200 metres? A kilometre? Perk up your ears. Could you count the number of birds calling in that forest? In other words, could you identify every bird that is within earshot? Believe it or not, while [...]