January 9, 2024
Dear Wild Me customers, donors, and friends:
The start of the Wild Me journey dates as far back as 2002 and some late night coding to match individual whale shark spot patterns across photos taken by divers. Our goal was simple: to noninvasively and more scalably “tag” and track each animal as it migrated through the ocean. Fast forward 22 years — throw in some luck, some really amazing co-founders and collaborators, and the advent of modern AI — and Wild Me has grown into a global platform with a robust database that has successfully logged over one million sightings and actively tracks over 200,000 individual marine and terrestrial animals across the globe. Our humble goal of tracking whale sharks has grown and evolved into a broader mission: to prevent biodiversity loss by creating AI and data management tools that speed and scale local conservation efforts to better understand, protect, and preserve the wildlife of our planet.
Today, a new chapter of the Wild Me journey unfolds. I’m honored to share that Wild Me has merged with Conservation X Labs to unlock the collective power of AI and computer vision technology for use in the global conservation crisis. Earth is on the brink of the Sixth Mass Extinction—the first caused by us, humans. Scientists note that animal species lost in the past 500 years would have taken about 18,000 to go extinct in the absence of humans, and up to 1 million species are threatened with extinction in the next few decades, according to a September study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal. If we do not course correct, we will continue to lose life-sustaining biodiversity at an alarming rate that may soon be irreversible.
By combining forces with Conservation X Labs, Wild Me’s open source platforms, data, and technology will live on within CXL’s suite of technology offerings. Our mission and the infrastructure that over 1,800 researchers rely on for their wildlife research and conservation work remains safe and is fully supported by CXL. The CXL team is committed to continuing their advancement with new software and AI models and building upon what we have created at Wild Me. I will remain Director of Wild Me within CXL, and I am thrilled to become CXL’s Chief Data Officer. You can read more about the merger in this press release.
Thank you to each of you for your support of Wild Me over these years. Under CXL, I look forward to the lasting impact we will have on global planetary and biodiversity health.
Sincerely,
Jason
Dear Wild Me customers, donors, and friends:
The start of the Wild Me journey dates as far back as 2002 and some late night coding to match individual whale shark spot patterns across photos taken by divers. Our goal was simple: to noninvasively and more scalably “tag” and track each animal as it migrated through the ocean. Fast forward 22 years — throw in some luck, some really amazing co-founders and collaborators, and the advent of modern AI — and Wild Me has grown into a global platform with a robust database that has successfully logged over one million sightings and actively tracks over 200,000 individual marine and terrestrial animals across the globe. Our humble goal of tracking whale sharks has grown and evolved into a broader mission: to prevent biodiversity loss by creating AI and data management tools that speed and scale local conservation efforts to better understand, protect, and preserve the wildlife of our planet.
Today, a new chapter of the Wild Me journey unfolds. I’m honored to share that Wild Me has merged with Conservation X Labs to unlock the collective power of AI and computer vision technology for use in the global conservation crisis. Earth is on the brink of the Sixth Mass Extinction—the first caused by us, humans. Scientists note that animal species lost in the past 500 years would have taken about 18,000 to go extinct in the absence of humans, and up to 1 million species are threatened with extinction in the next few decades, according to a September study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal. If we do not course correct, we will continue to lose life-sustaining biodiversity at an alarming rate that may soon be irreversible.
By combining forces with Conservation X Labs, Wild Me’s open source platforms, data, and technology will live on within CXL’s suite of technology offerings. Our mission and the infrastructure that over 1,800 researchers rely on for their wildlife research and conservation work remains safe and is fully supported by CXL. The CXL team is committed to continuing their advancement with new software and AI models and building upon what we have created at Wild Me. I will remain Director of Wild Me within CXL, and I am thrilled to become CXL’s Chief Data Officer. You can read more about the merger in this press release.
Thank you to each of you for your support of Wild Me over these years. Under CXL, I look forward to the lasting impact we will have on global planetary and biodiversity health.
Sincerely,
Jason