Bear Identification
Noninvasive technologies to identify and monitor bears, facilitating their conservation.
Animal reID
4
species supported
0 tags
fully non-invasive
100%
open source
Animal reID is a modular computer vision framework for identifying individual animals. It adapts to each species by choosing the right technique — facial recognition, spot-pattern matching, or local feature analysis.
From bears in British Columbia and trout in river systems to snow leopards in Central Asia and seals in coastal waters, it gives researchers non-invasive tools for wildlife monitoring and conservation.
See it in action
Upload a photo to the live demos and watch Animal reID pick out the individual — bear, trout, seal, or snow leopard.
Try the demosWhy Animal reID
Animal reID combines proven techniques into one adaptable system for individual identification.
One framework, many species
Proven on bears, trout, seals, and snow leopards, and extensible to new species.
The right technique for your data
Metric learning, local feature matching, or a hybrid, matched to your species and imagery.
Non-invasive by design
Identify individuals from camera-trap and observation images, with no tagging or marking.
Population trends over time
Match new sightings against historical databases to track survival, movement, and behavior.
Built to scale in the field
Automate identification to cut field costs and cover larger areas with existing networks.
Research-grade and open source
Built on peer-reviewed methods, with open-source implementations you can run and adapt.
Interactive Demos
Experience Animal reID in action with our live demonstrations. These systems are currently monitoring real wildlife populations.
Upload bear photographs and watch as the system segments facial features and matches them against our database of known individuals from British Columbia.
See local feature matching in action as the system analyzes spot patterns to identify individual trout from river monitoring programs.
Upload seal photographs and see how the system identifies individual seals through their unique whisker patterns and facial features from the Wadden Sea monitoring program.
Upload snow leopard photographs and watch as the system analyzes unique coat patterns to identify individuals from Central Asian mountain ranges.
How It Works
Animal reID matches the identification technique to the species. Two approaches cover most cases:
Facial recognition
Metric Learning
Used successfully for bear identification, this approach combines instance segmentation to isolate animal faces with deep metric learning to create unique embeddings for each individual. The system learns to recognize subtle facial features and marking patterns that distinguish one animal from another.
Applications: bears, primates, big cats, and other species with distinctive facial characteristics.
- Highly accurate for species with distinctive facial features
- Robust to pose variations and lighting conditions
- Proven in production for British Columbia bear monitoring
Spot patterns
Local Feature Matching
Pioneered in our trout identification work, this technique uses advanced local feature matching (LightGLUE) to analyze unique spot patterns on fish bodies. The system standardizes fish orientations and matches keypoint patterns against a reference database.
Applications: trout, leopards, cheetahs, whale sharks, and other spot-patterned species.
- Non-invasive identification from natural markings
- Works with partial views and occlusions
- Effective for species with complex, unique pattern distributions
Resources & Documentation
Explore the open-source projects and technical guides behind Animal reID.
Each implementation is open-source with detailed documentation:
Trout Identification
Non-invasive technology for monitoring trout populations using computer vision to accurately identify individual fish.
Snow Leopard Monitoring
Non-invasive snow leopard monitoring using computer vision analysis of camera trap photos to identify individual animals.
Wadden Sea Seal Monitoring
Automated seal population monitoring using AI to count, classify, and identify individual seals from aerial imagery in the Wadden Sea.
In-depth technical guides covering the design and implementation of animal identification systems:
A guide to designing a bear face segmentation system
Detecting bears in real time using low-power technology.
A guide to designing a bear face recognition system
Identify bears with Metric Learning.
How to prepare data for IDentification?
An in-depth look at the common preprocessing stages required to perform identification using computer vision.
Identify individuals with Local Feature Matching
A comprehensive examination of using local feature matching for individual identification.
Have a species to identify?
Tell us about your animals and your image data — we'll give you an honest read on which identification approach fits and what it would take.
Start a project