NAIRA a tool to automatic mammals genera identification in camera trapping pictures

Abstract

Camera traps are an efficient tool for detecting terrestrial mammals and birds. Vast amounts of presence data and information about distribution and size of mammals and birds have been generated in a very short time using this approach. The first step into a monitoring study, using camera trapping is to analyse the photographs. However, processing times, when it is done manually, can take longer because of the large amount of data collected. Pre-selecting relevant pictures using an automatic system and automatically identify the animals is an alternative to reduce the analysis time. The challenges to automatic identify the mammal´s genus from camera trap photos are: few examples of some genera (unbalanced classes problem), variation in light levels, constant changes in the scene, animal partially occluded, blurred photographs and other variations resulting from the natural dynamics of the ecosystem. Until now there has not been a computational tool to help in the specific task of labelling the animal´s genus. Thus, it is necessary to design new tools that automate the processing of these photographs.