NEW TECHNOLOGY: Facial Recognition For Grizzlies
Wouldn't you like to know, just before you were mauled, "Oh that's Kevin charging at me, roaring and showing his teeth. Hello Kevin!" That will be the last thing to pass through your brain before his claw does, now that we have facial recognition technology for grizzlies.
I suppose if the grizzlies find out about this they won't be too happy. I mean, what are we saying, "You all look alike to me?" That's insulting.
I'm not sure whose idea this was but you should not be shocked that it came from Canada. One of their universities teamed up with one of their software companies to create this technology.
Sorry, this will not be a downloadable app for your phone. Not yet anyway.
So why not just stick with tracking collars, you might wonder. Those things are expensive and hard to get on every bear. But we can now look at the bear's face and know which one passed by a camera trap.
This will help researchers track bears' habits, including where they hunt and breed.
There is a website called The Bear Id Project where they state their goal:
"This is important as scientists are under increasing pressure to draw larger conclusions from their research, but with fewer resources available. This project provides the foundation for the development of face recognition for other threatened wildlife, which could aid conservation efforts worldwide."
This University Of Victoria also hopes to study the conflicts between humans and bears with the use of this technology. But we here in Wyoming could have told them - tourists are stupid. Case closed.