Tag Archives: Douglas College

AI for salmon recovery

Hopefully you won’t be subjected to a commercial prior to this 3 mins. 49 secs. video about the salmon and how artificial intelligence (AI) could make a difference in theirs and our continued survival,

Video caption: Wild Salmon Center is partnering with First Nations to pilot the Salmon Vision technology. (Credit: Olivia Leigh Nowak/Le Colibri Studio.)

An October 19, 2023 news item on phys.org announces this research, Note: Links have been removed,

Scientists and natural resource managers from Canadian First Nations, governments, academic institutions, and conservation organizations published the first results of a unique salmon population monitoring tool in Frontiers in Marine Science.

This groundbreaking new technology, dubbed “Salmon Vision,” combines artificial intelligence with age-old fishing weir technology. Early assessments show it to be remarkably adept at identifying and counting fish species, potentially enabling real-time salmon population monitoring for fisheries managers.

An October 19, 2023 Wild Salmon Center news release on EurekAlert, which originated the news item, provides more detail about the work,

“In recent years, we’ve seen the promise of underwater video technology to help us literally see salmon return to rivers,” says lead author Dr. Will Atlas, Senior Watershed Scientist with the Portland-based Wild Salmon Center. “That dovetails with what many of our First Nations partners are telling us: that we need to automate fish counting to make informed decisions while salmon are still running.” 

The Salmon Vision pilot study annotates more than 500,000 individual video frames captured at two Indigenous-run fish counting weirs on the Kitwanga and Bear Rivers of B.C.’s Central Coast. 

The first-of-its-kind deep learning computer model, developed in data partnership with the Gitanyow Fisheries Authority and Skeena Fisheries Commission, shows promising accuracy in identifying salmon species. It yielded mean average precision rates of 67.6 percent in tracking 12 different fish species passing through custom fish-counting boxes at the two weirs, with scores surpassing 90 and 80 percent for coho and sockeye salmon: two of the principal fish species targeted by First Nations, commercial, and recreational fishers. 

“When we envisioned providing fast grants for projects focused on Indigenous futurism and climate resilience, this is the type of project that we hoped would come our way,” says Dr. Keolu Fox, a professor at the University of California-San Diego, and one of several reviewers in an early crowdfunding round for the development of Salmon Vision. 

Collaborators on the model, funded by the British Columbia Salmon Recovery and Innovation Fund, include researchers and fisheries managers with Simon Fraser University and Douglas College computing sciences, the Pacific Salmon Foundation, Gitanyow Fisheries Authority, and the Skeena Fisheries Commission. Following these exciting early results, the next step is to expand the model with partner First Nations into a half-dozen new watersheds on B.C.’s North and Central Coast.

Real-time data on salmon returns is critical on several fronts. According to Dr. Atlas, many fisheries in British Columbia have been data-poor for decades. That leaves fisheries managers to base harvest numbers on early-season catch data, rather than the true number of salmon returning. Meanwhile, changing weather patterns, stream flows, and ocean conditions are creating more variable salmon returns: uncertainty that compounds the ongoing risks of overfishing already-vulnerable populations.

“Without real-time data on salmon returns, it’s extremely difficult to build climate-smart, responsive fisheries,” says Dr. Atlas. “Salmon Vision data collection and analysis can fill that information gap.” 

It’s a tool that he says will be invaluable to First Nation fisheries managers and other organizations both at the decision-making table—in providing better information to manage conservation risks and fishing opportunities—and in remote rivers across salmon country, where on-the-ground data collection is challenging and costly. 

The Salmon Vision team is implementing automated counting on a trial basis in several rivers around the B.C. North and Central Coasts in 2023. The goal is to provide reliable real-time count data by 2024.

This October 18, 2023 article by Ramona DeNies for the Wild Salmon Center (WSC) is nicely written although it does cover some of the same material seen in the news release, Note: A link has been removed,

Right now, in rivers across British Columbia’s Central Coast, we don’t know how many salmon are actually returning. At least, not until fishing seasons are over.

And yet, fisheries managers still have to make decisions. They have to make forecasts, modeled on data from the past. They have to set harvest targets for commercial and recreational fisheries. And increasingly, they have to make the call on emergency closures, when things start looking grim.

“On the north and central coast of BC, we’ve seen really wildly variable returns of salmon over the last decade,” says Dr. Will Atlas, Wild Salmon Center Senior Watershed Scientist. “With accelerating climate change, every year is unprecedented now. Yet from a fisheries management perspective, we’re still going into most seasons assuming that this year will look like the past.”

One answer, Dr. Atlas says, is “Salmon Vision.” Results from this first-of-its-kind technology—developed by WSC in data partnership with the Gitanyow Fisheries Authority and Skeena Fisheries Commission—were recently published in Frontiers in Marine Science.

There are embedded images in DeNies’ October 18, 2023 article; it’s where I found the video.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Wild salmon enumeration and monitoring using deep learning empowered detection and tracking by William I. Atlas, Sami Ma, Yi Ching Chou, Katrina Connors, Daniel Scurfield, Brandon Nam, Xiaoqiang Ma, Mark Cleveland, Janvier Doire, Jonathan W. Moore, Ryan Shea, Jiangchuan Liu. Front. Mar. Sci., 20 September 2023 Volume 10 – 2023 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2023.1200408

This paper appears to be open access.

Douglas College (Vancouver, Canada) hosts April 2, 2014 talk “How Do We Know? Scientific information and public policy: GMOs, pesticides and the demise of bees?”

I gather the audience for this event is the Douglas College staff, students, and faculty since it’s being held from 1 – 2:30 pm. There’s more from the March 21, 2014 announcement on the Douglas College website (Note: A link has been removed),

A public talk at Douglas College will seek to unravel the complex and contentious debates surrounding genetically modified crops, pesticide use and declining bee populations. Mark Winston, a Simon Fraser University insect [bees] expert and public commentator, will focus on these issues as he examines how to improve the way science is communicated to the public.

“We are pleased to welcome Dr. Winston to share his insights on the important issue of making scientific communication more effective. He is a great communicator, an expert in his field and an innovator around issues in dialogue,” says Rob McGregor, Executive Director of the Institute of Urban Ecology at Douglas College.

The upcoming talk is titled “How Do We Know? Scientific information and public policy: GMOs, pesticides and the demise of bees.” [emphasis mine] The free, public event takes place on Wednesday, April 2 from 1-2:30pm in the Laura C. Muir Performing Arts Theatre on the Douglas College New Westminster campus (700 Royal Ave., New Westminster).

For those who are not familiar with local geography, the word Vancouver can refer to the city or to the metro area, which includes the municipality of New Westminster where this particular Douglas College campus is located.

One final note, according to the Simon Fraser University (SFU) Centre for Dialogue (where Winston works) notice, a reception will follow.

International Year of Chemistry

ChemQuest 2011, an event honouring the International Year of Chemistry, is being hosted by Year of Science BC, Simon Fraser University, and Douglas College on May 14, 2011 from 1 pm to 4 pm on the Academic Quadrangle at Simon Fraser University’s Burnaby Campus.

This isn’t the only such event in Canada. Last week, there was a chemistry marathon (part of a larger initiative, 24 heures de science), La chimie pour tous (Chemistry for everyone) from 12 noon to 12 midnight at Université de Montréal. Isabelle Burgun wrote up an interview, for Agence Science-Presse, that she had with the chemist leading this public engagement event, Andreea Schmitzer. From the interview,

ASP – À qui s’adresse cette activité?

AS — Nous désirons sensibiliser la population et insuffler aux jeunes le goût de devenir chimiste! Mais nous visons surtout les plus jeunes, car le goût pour la science s’acquiert très jeune et puis, voir l’émerveillement scientifique dans les jeux [sic] d’un enfant n’a pas de prix!

ASP — La chimie, vous êtes tombée dedans quand vous étiez petite…

AS — J’ai effectivement découvert la chimie enfant, avec mon grand-père, qui était un passionné de science, la physique et la chimie en particulier. On faisait ensemble toutes sortes de manipulation dans le garage. À 6 ans, j’étais fascinée par tout ce qu’on pouvait apprendre et comprendre en manipulant des molécules, et c’est exactement ce que je fais aujourd’hui en recherche. Cette passion héritée de mon grand-père, j’ai à mon tour le goût de la transmettre aux jeunes et aux moins jeunes.

My rough translation:

Who is your audience for this event?

We want to raise public awareness and we want to inculcate in youth the desire to become chemists. But we’re particularly interested in inspiring young children because one acquires an interest in science at a young age and seeing the wonder at science in a child’s eyes has no price.

You were very young when you tumbled into a passion for chemistry.

I discovered chemistry very young, with my grandfather who was passionate about science, physics and chemistry in particular. We performed all kinds of experiments in the garage. At the age of six, I was fascinated by what you could learn and understand by manipulating molecules and that’s exactly what I do in my research today. This passion I inherited from my grandfather is what I want to pass on to the young and the not so young.

That’s it, I’m in a rush this morning. I’ll come back later to fix mistakes. Meanwhile, hope to see you at Northern Voice today or tomorrow.