How AI could help us look after Tasmanian devils

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-06-06 00:01

Australia; International; TAS

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

Artificial intelligence algorithms could be key to helping us monitor the spread of facial cancer in wild Tasmanian devil populations, according to Australian and international researchers. Cameras are currently used to help monitor populations, but it can be difficult to tell from the cameras whether a devil has a wound on their face or cancer. The researchers trained an AI system on images of devils with and without face cancer, and say it was then able to determine whether a devil had cancer with 92.4% accuracy. The researchers say if this approach was used, it could allow field staff to do more monitoring with less work.

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Research CSIRO Publishing, Web page The URL will go live at approx. 8am AEST on June 6

Journal/
conference: Wildlife Research

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Tasmania, Near East University, Turkey

Funder: This research did not receive any specific funding.

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