PHOTO IDENTIFICATION OF TURTLES
Here at CICI, we are always looking for better ways, less invasive techniques to get great science and effective results with all the work we do. We have commenced a collaboration with Wild Me to start to do just that.
With their help, and yours as citizen scientists you can now report any sighting of a turtle from your time at the Conflict Islands.
This non invasive photo identification process takes the unique scute patterns of each turtles face and uses artificial intelligence digital mapping program to give the turtle a unique identification number. This means anytime you have an encounter with a turtle YOU can contribute to meaningful scientific research and expand out ever growing data base of turtles that have been identified.
The Internet of Turtles takes data from users and implements computer vision software to automatically detect and identify individual turtles. There are a few things to keep in mind when submitting images that can help us.
Our computer vision software uses the patttern on side of the turtle's head for identification. Images where the turtle's head is angled or somewhate blurry can still be useful, but a good shot from the side is best. The images do not need to be very high resolution, but it doesn't hurt.
If you can see the pattern on the side of the turtle's head clearly, and think that you could tell if the same turtle was in another picture, the software probably can too
This image would perform fine with matching.
Please include as much information about the turtle in your image as you can. The most important pieces are date and location. With this and an identifiable image, we can start to track individuals and populations.
PHOTO GUIDE
