From smart phones to smart wildlife sanctuaries, Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) is accelerating the use of cutting-edge technologies in conservation, most recently with the trial of an AI-powered ‘SmartGate’.

Designed and built by AWC’s in-house team of IT experts, the SmartGate acts as a double-gated enclosed tunnel that allows native species to move from one side of a feral predator-free fenced area to the other. AWC manages a network of nine of these safe havens that play a critical role in protecting threatened wildlife from predation by introduced cats and foxes – the primary driver of native mammal extinctions and ongoing declines in Australia.

A prototype of the SmartGate has been in trial at AWC’s Karakamia Wildlife Sanctuary on Noongar Country in south-west Western Australia since September 2024. The gate was deployed in a fenced pen within Karakamia’s 286-hectare feral predator-free fenced area, with Woylies (Brush-tailed Bettongs) as the target species.

“Results from the trial have been very exciting, with up to 25 successful and safe Woylie transits over 17 active nights and zero instances of non-target transits,” said Yezmin Assad, AWC’s Networking and Telecommunications Specialist and one of the minds behind the invention.

“We’ve made exciting advancements, learned many lessons and observed a range of animal behaviours that will result in improvements for the revised version of the SmartGate, currently in development.”

The SmartGate works by keeping the outer gate of the tunnel closed and the inner gate open, until an accompanying camera and AI processor are activated by motion detection in the centre of the tunnel. If this processor identifies the motion in the SmartGate as a non-target species, the system remains as is. However, if it detects an individual from the target species (in this case, a single Woylie), the system closes the entry door and opens the exit gate to allow the animal to move through.

This AI processer, known as AWC’s AI Species Classifier Model, is another technological advancement by AWC’s IT team, created to identify images of up to 120 native wildlife and invasive species. As well as forming an integral part of AWC’s SmartGate design, this revolutionary technology is also greatly improving the speed and cost-effectiveness of camera trap data processing, enabling faster response times to threats and changing environmental conditions – to date, the processor has assisted in accurately classifying more than 55 million images.

While still in the early stages of development, the potential applications of the SmartGate are wide-ranging and may assist in solving a range of other ecological challenges, from controlling feral predators and herbivores to managing overabundant large macropod populations and more.

“The SmartGate will refine the way scientists and land managers work on the front line of the extinction crisis,” says Damien Kerr, AWC’s Chief Information and Technology Officer. “It has enormous potential for integration within AWC’s network of sanctuaries, and offers an exciting glimpse into the future of conservation.”

The SmartGate is just one of the many exciting innovations being developed by AWC’s IT team, all with the objective of improving conservation outcomes for Australian wildlife.

For more information on the cutting-edge technologies employed by AWC, click here.

Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) is a global leader in conservation, providing hope to Australia’s wildlife with a science-informed, land management partnership model that delivers high impact results. AWC is a national leader in landscape scale conservation land management, reintroductions of threatened species and the establishment of feral predator-free areas.

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