In India, AI-enabled cameras are sending out tiger alerts in real time

TrailGuard is an innovative camera trap that detects specific species, like tigers, and transmits images of them instantly.

Silently padding through the jungle, the tiger slinks between tree trunks and hanging vines, her stripes a seamless veil among the dappled shadows on the forest floor. Hard to spot for a human — harder still if you’re a deer — but not so difficult for artificial intelligence. Developed by US-based NGO Resolve, TrailGuard AI is an innovative camera trap that is designed to detect specific species and transmit images of them instantly. While the technology was originally developed to combat poaching — the camera’s first field-test was in a reserve in East Africa in 2018, where Resolve says it led to the arrest of 30 poachers — conservationists in India saw potential for its use in managing human-tiger conflict. TrailGuard uses an advanced vision chip with embedded AI that can recognize up to 10 species — such as tigers, leopards, elephants and humans — and transmit the data in real-time to park rangers via cell phone signal or long-range radio. Because it only recognizes select species, it uses less energy than regular camera traps, so it can stay in the field for more than two years, rather than needing its battery changed every month. Last year, TrailGuard AI deployed 12 cameras in a two-month trial in the Kanha–Pench corridor in Madhya Pradesh, known as India’s “tiger state.” The 3,150-square-kilometer (1,216-square-mile) landscape includes the Pench Tiger Reserve, the Kanha Tiger Reserve, and a forest corridor connecting the two, and is home to over 300 tigers, the largest population in central India. Tigers, which need extensive space to roam, can freely move between the two reserves, which helps the population flourish and aids genetic diversity. But the tigers aren’t the only ones who live in the forest: it’s also home to around 600,000 people living in 715 villages scattered through the corridor, and there are 2.7 million people living within five-kilometers (3.1 miles) of the tiger conservation landscape – which can create conflict with the big cats.