Using Tensorflow-AI to detect cattle in a national park in Nigeria

Gashaka-Gumti is Nigeria’s largest national park, and it makes room for people as well as wildlife: pastoralists graze their herds and farm within its boundaries. That turns management into a balancing act — protecting biodiversity while meeting the needs of local communities. The ANI Foundation, a Nigerian non-profit working at exactly that intersection of nature and agriculture, asked us to count cattle from space and track their movements across the park. Using our TensorFlow-based technology, we analysed 30 cm-resolution satellite imagery to produce cattle maps — a picture of the herds today, and a basis for monitoring them well into the future.