Chelonest

Video-based turtle nesting detection system.

Why

Turtle nests are routinely ravaged by other wildlife. In order to maximally protect turtle nests, I’m exploring whether a computer can help an experienced steward more accurately detect nesting events.

Concept

Identify nesting behavior from a video camera. A computer will apply heuristics to detect and track turtles within an enclosure. If activity congruent with nesting occurs, a notification would be sent.

Status

Early development.

Current Components

• Unified and shared configuration (of cameras, integrations)
• Timelapse (renders 12h of footage in to a 3m video for a hasty answer to “what happened last night” questions)
• Integrates with Frigate (for scrubbing recorded video and annotating)
• Integrates with Pushover (for notifications)
• Integrates with MQTT for distributed processing
• Motion detector
• Event logging (for later heuristic tuning)
• Heuristic plug-in system (multiple nesting heuristics at once)

Needed Component

• Sample heuristic that detects nesting