Computers can consistently recognize dozens of individual birds, even if we can't tell the difference ourselves.
Thus, our study provides an opportunity to overcome one of the biggest limitations in the study of wild birds: the identification of individuals.André Ferreira, PhD Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE) in France
Scientists from institutes in France, Germany, Portugal and South Africa took part in the study.They describe the process of using artificial intelligence to individually identify birds.This involves collecting thousands of labeled images of birds and then using that data to train and test AI models.This study represents the first successful attempt at the bird identification process using AI.
The researchers trained artificial intelligence models to recognize images of individual birds in wild populations.After training, the AI models were tested on images of different individuals that they had not seen before.As a result, the algorithm named all individuals with 90% accuracy for wild species.
In animal behavior studies, individualspecies identification is one of the most expensive and time-consuming behavioral and population size constraints that researchers can study. Modern identification methods, such as attaching colored stripes to the legs of birds, can also be stressful for animals.
These problems can be solved using artificial intelligence models. The ability to distinguish individual animals from each other is important during long-term monitoring of populations.
However, the appearance of individual birds may vary.over time, for example due to molting, and it is not known how this will affect the performance of the AI model. Images of the same bird taken several months later can be mistakenly identified as different individuals.
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