Work

Bornean orangutan nest identification using computer vision and deep learning models to improve conservation strategies

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Background Regular population surveys are crucial for the evaluation of conservation measures and the management of critically endangered species such as the Bornean orangutans. Uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAV) are useful for monitoring orangutans by capturing images of the canopy, including nests, to monitor their population. However, manually detecting and counting nests from UAV imagery is time-consuming and requires trained experts. Computer vision and deep learning (DL) models for image classification offer an excellent alternative for orangutan nest identification. Methods This study investigated DL for nest recognition from UAV imagery. A binary dataset (“with nest” and “without nest”) was created from UAV imagery from Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. The images were captured using a fixed-wing UAV with a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor camera. After image augmentation, 1,624 images were used for the dataset and further split into 70% training, 15% testing and 15% validation for model performance evaluation, i.e. , accuracy, precision, recall and F1-score. Four DL models (InceptionV3, MobileNetV2, VGG19 and Xception) were trained to learn from the labeled dataset and predict the presence of nests in new images. Results The results show that out of four DL models, Inception V3 has the best model performance with more than 99% accuracy and precision, while VGG19 has the lowest performance. In addition, gradient-weighted class activation maps were used to interpret the results, allowing visualization of the regions used by InceptionV3 and VGG19 for classification. This study shows the potential of integrating DL into orangutan conservation, particularly in monitoring the orangutan population in the protected environment. Future research should focus on the automatic detection of nests to improve UAV-based monitoring of orangutans.

Source: PeerJ

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.20333

Authors: Donna Simon, Keeyen Pang, Rayner Bili, Song-Quan Ong, Henry Bernard

Institutions: Universiti of Malaysia Sabah, Sabah Wildlife Department, Sabah Forestry Department

Language: English

Topic: Advanced Neural Network Applications

Subfield: Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Life on land

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,395