WEST’s Riley Knoedler, Jacob Morris, and Nicholas Faraco-Hadlock were in Denver last week for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers/Computer Vision Foundation Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) 2026, the leading annual forum for advances in computer vision and AI research. The conference drew over 9,000 researchers and practitioners from around the world working on some of the most cutting-edge problems in machine learning, image recognition, and AI-driven analysis.
The annual CVPR bird walk, organized by the AI for Conservation community (which brings together conference-goers who care about applying technology to real-world conservation challenges), was coordinated by Riley, with Nicholas serving as the local bird expert. The group spent an hour exploring the South Platte River corridor in downtown Denver.
Riley also presented A Semi-Automated Pipeline for Detecting Bats in Thermal Drone Video at the CV4Animals Workshop. This presentation discussed WEST’s use of the BatCopter to conduct aerial surveys for bats, using both thermal cameras and ultrasonic acoustic detectors. Additionally, WEST’s Machine Learning team has developed a custom AI solution to detect potential bats in the video data, with final confirmation provided by a bat biologist.
Interested in how WEST is integrating AI and computer vision into wildlife and environmental work? Reach out to learn more about our capabilities and how we can support your projects.
