How AI Can Save the Zebras

Tanya Berger-Wolf didn’t expect to become an environmentalist. After falling in love with math at 5 years old, she started a doctorate in computer science in her early 20s, attracting attention for her cutting-edge theoretical research. But just as she was about to graduate, she became obsessed with a topic that surprised her professors and even herself: zebras.

While still an undergraduate, Berger-Wolf began working as a research assistant at the ecology department, building computer simulations of wildlife populations. She was intrigued by the fact that digital technologies and biodiversity were following exponential trends, but in opposite directions. While the digital sector was burgeoning, endangered species populations were crashing. And in contrast to the deluge of data she had experienced in computer science, Berger-Wolf was shocked at how little data existed about the world’s most endangered species.

The animal that caught Berger-Wolf’s attention, the Grevy’s zebra, was known in antiquity as the imperial zebra. Used by Romans in their circuses, the largest of the wild equines, renowned for their elegant stripes and striking gait, the Grevy’s zebras once roamed large expanses of East Africa in giant herds. Today, fewer than 1,000 zebras remain, crowded out by farmers’ fields and cattle ranges, and still hunted for their skins and meat. By the time Berger-Wolf learned about their plight, scientists were predicting that the iconic species might die out within two decades.

How, exactly, could computer science help save endangered species?

Maybe, Berger-Wolf thought, she could apply her digital skills in a way that could help save the zebras.

But the computer