SmartParks: How AI is Helping National Park Conservation

The world's national parks are facing mounting challenges and difficulties. Poaching remains a significant issue for many park conservation efforts, with 420 Rhinos being poached in 2024 in South Africa alone (Save The Rhino, 2025). Although this figure is down on the previous year it highlights the constant battle national parks are facing against poachers to keep their animals safe and, in some cases, preserve entire species. In addition to this, climate change poses a very real and growing threat to national parks across the world, parks such as Glacier National Park in the USA have faced significant climate related challenges as ‘‘between 1966 and 2015, every named glacier got smaller, some by more than 80%’ (Parker, 2023). In this battle to save the worlds national parks, AI and emerging technologies can, and currently do, play a vital role in ensuring those tasked with park maintenance and conservation can rapidly and effectively respond to the threats facing national parks today, only by fully embracing AI systems will our national parks be able to flourish in the face of danger.

Wildlife tracking is a cornerstone of national park maintenance, and allows conservationists to identify critical habitats and detect early signs of population decline. The effort to monitor animals is being aided in cutting-edge ways by the introduction of AI assisted systems to better ensure accuracy and efficiency during the observation process. AI systems are helping in the effort to monitor the critically endangered Flapper Skate off the coast of Western Scotland. Beforehand the conservation efforts relied on photographic records of Skate being ‘personally scanned and matched by the researchers’ which meant that ‘Attempts to draft in volunteers to help foundered because, the volunteers admitted, the work was “really boring”’ (Carrell, 2025). However, the conservationists have now turned to AI assisted scanning of photographs, which has been a fantastic success, Dr Jane Dodd stated that ‘“We had a backlog of about 250 photographs in Skatespotter that we hadn’t matched, and once we got the AI working, we managed to clear that in two weeks. That had been sitting there for probably six months or a year.”’ (Carrell, 2025) marking a fantastic intersection of AI and conservation efforts and highlighting the unbelievable potential that AI brings to wildlife monitoring and protection projects from across the globe. In fact, the introduction of AI scanning in Scotland now means that the Skate database can now take in ‘skate identification data from as far north as Orkney and from a project in Northern Ireland’ (Carrell, 2025). The future of wildlife monitoring lies firmly with AI, and our earths most vulnerable creatures will be happy to hear it.

Poaching remains a significant issue, with thousands of animals being poached every year in national parks across the world. Thankfully, with the introduction of AI assisted systems this may not be the case any longer. The GAIA Initiative has been on the forefront of the mission to utilise AI in order to curb poaching and identify poaching hotspots, and has done so in a unique way. Fully combining the natural world and emerging technologies, the GAIA Initiative has equipped vultures with a camera to capture images and movement from the perspective of a vulture, nature's most infamous death signifier. Whilst the Vultures are in flight, ‘An ai algorithm runs directly on the transmitter and analyses the movement data. The researchers classify this data and thus obtain information about animal behaviour and the environment from a distance in near real-time’ (Jungblut & O'Sullivan, 2024), such information is an absolute goldmine for those running conservation efforts, as ‘deaths can also indicate that disease has broken out, environmental toxins have spread or animals have been killed illegally’ (Jungblut & O'Sullivan, 2024). The GAIA initiatives cutting edge i³ program, which gained its name because it is ‘the combination of three intelligences. Animal, artificial and human intelligence’ (Jungblut & O'Sullivan, 2024) is a perfect example of how AI is fuelling cutting-edge wildlife monitoring operations, which are sometimes a lot closer to the animals they mean to protect than you’d initially suspect. 

With the rise of climate change related disasters such as fires, forest national parks face very credible threats that a great deal of their fauna and trees may be wiped out by a freak accident due to soaring temperatures. No place knows the very real threat of wildfires better than California, which has been the site of devastating and tragic fires even within the last 6 months. In response to this, ALERTCalifornia have devised an AI assisted camera system that will aid in the response and containment of wildfires, which will not only help national park conservation but save lives. ‘When the AI spots a potential fire on ALERTCalifornia’s network of cameras, the system alerts firefighters and provides a percentage of certainty and estimated location for the incident’ (ALERTCalifornia), ensuring rapid responses to fires - reducing the chances of it spreading out of control significantly. As humanity grapples with the increasing impacts of climate change, such systems will only become more widespread and in demand. In 2024 alone, ALERTCalifornia ended the year with a camera network of 1,040 cameras across the state, a number that is sure to rise in the coming months and years. With ALERTCalifornia, there is an early indicator of the immense power and impact that AI will have in protecting our national parks, our forests and our neighbourhoods from out of control wildfires.

Its clear that in the area of conservation, humanity still has much to do and our national parks and wildlife in general face serious threats not only from human poachers but from climate change and disease. With AI, we’re no longer reacting to poaching, we’re staying one step ahead. AI systems are giving national parks a fighting chance by spotting wildfires before they spread, tracking climate shifts in real time, and helping rangers protect fragile ecosystems faster than ever. ​​If we can equip our national parks with AI we may not only save what’s left, but help it thrive. The frontier of conservation is smart, swift, and just getting started.

References

ALERTCalifornia. (n.d.). Technology. ALERTCalifornia. https://alertcalifornia.org/technology/

Carrell, S. (2025, April 5). AI scanning helps Scottish conservation project turn tide for flapper skate. The Guardian. Retrieved April 10, 2025, from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/05/scotland-conservation-project-flapper-skate-ai-database

Jungblut, S.-I., & O'Sullivan, L. (2024, December 18). The Gaia Initiative Uses AI, Animal Transmitters and Vultures to Protect Against Epidemics and Poaching. RESET. https://en.reset.org/the-gaia-initiative-uses-ai-animal-transmitters-and-vultures-to-protect-against-epidemics-and-poaching/

Parker, J. (2023, August 5). Photos: How Glacier National Park Has Changed Since the 1900s. Business Insider. Retrieved April 10, 2025, from https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-how-glacier-national-park-has-changed-since-the-1900s-2023-8

Save The Rhino. (2025, March 7). 420 Rhinos Poached in South Africa in 2024. Save The Rhino. https://www.savetherhino.org/africa/south-africa/420-rhinos-poached-in-south-africa-in-2024/