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DRONE COMPANY AND AI FIRM TEAM UP TO CREATE GROUNDBREAKING TOOL THAT COULD HELP
SAVE ICONIC SPECIES: 'A GAME-CHANGER FOR HOW WE LOOK AT CONSERVATION'

"They can go where humans can't."

by Robert EnglishOctober 25, 2024
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Photo Credit: Monarch Joint Venture

Monarch butterflies are essential to many ecosystems across North America, as
the pollinators migrate from the North to the South each fall. 

However, they are an endangered species, with population numbers of 233,394 in
January 2024. According to the Xerces Society, this is just 5% of their
population from the 1980s. 



Some of the driving forces of the decline in the population include habitat loss
and insecticides, but they are not federally protected.

Fortunately, a partnership between a drone company and an AI firm could help
save the species, according to Inforum.
















Botlink, a Fargo-based software and drone company, has partnered with
Minneapolis-Saint Paul-based Simple Business Automation and Belgian AI company
Radix to create POLLi, a conservation software system designed to track
milkweed, a plant vital to the monarch butterfly's reproductive cycle. The work
was done in close partnership with Saint Paul-based Monarch Joint Venture, a
partnership of state and federal agencies working to protect the butterflies.

Monarch butterflies lay their eggs on milkweed. The hatching caterpillars then
use milkweed as a source of food to grow and become butterflies. Milkweed is
also vital in producing a toxin that remains in the bodies of monarchs, making
them undesirable to predators. 

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However, a loss of milkweed across the country is one of the contributing
factors in the declining population of monarch butterflies.

POLLi works by using high-res cameras attached to drones that can gather images
over where they fly, which are then computed with trained AI to map milkweed
over large areas. This helps gather data faster than humans in the field.



"What are drones actually good for?" asked Matt Sather, GM of Botlink, per
Inforum. "They can go where humans can't, they can get there fast, and now with
camera technology, can take incredible pictures."  

In 2023, the publication noted Botlink helped identify nearly 80,000 individual
milkweed plants.



"So far, it's been great," said Wendy Caldwell, executive director of Monarch
Joint Venture. "I think it's going to be a game-changer for how we look at
conservation."



Sather hopes that the POLLi technology can have wide-ranging uses beyond the
conservation of monarch butterflies. For example, the platform could help U.S.
departments, including transportation, defense, and fish and wildlife, to make
quicker and better policy decisions.



"What we've created really provides an economical solution to help (people)
capture, collect and evaluate at a level that they've never been capable of
doing before," said Greg Emerick, the CEO of Simple Business Automation, per
Inforum. "There are just so many different things that can be done with the
tool. It will help from a sustainability perspective across all sorts of
species, and benefit all sorts of different insects and pollinators."

"We've been around the drone market to know that we probably were on top of
something unique here," Sather added. "It's going to be an exciting platform.
There's a lot of uses — probably as much as your imagination can think of."



Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool
list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.


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