2024-11-25 14:13:53
Conservationists are using artificial inteligence to save endangered red squirrels.
According to the Government’s Animal and Plant Health Agency, there are 2.7 million grey squirrels in the UK, and its increasing number has caused the population of red squirrels to fall “from around 3.5 million to just a few hundred thousand”.
A new AI tool called Squirrel Agent is able to tell the difference between the grey and red rodents.
Developed by Genysys Engine, a type of squirrel can be detected by using their chins, ears and tails – with 97 per cent accuracy.
This is due to their whiskers acting “like an individual fingerprint”.
The tool can also deliver medicine and control feeders – with reds entering the ones with food, and greys being allowed into the feeder that has had food replaced with contraceptive paste to manage its population.
Test runs are being carried out at five organisations across the UK, including Bangor University and the Scottish Wildlife Trust.
Emma McClenaghan, co-founder of Genysys Engine, told Sky News: “The whiskers are like an individual fingerprint.
“So, the idea is to identify each individual squirrel, not just whether it’s red, but you could say: ‘That is Sally the squirrel and her dad was Ben and she travelled up to Scotland through England.
“So we can just get a bit more conservation data.”
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