WingSentry

Tourism lets people enjoy nature, but it can also disrupt birds' migration routes and daily activity. 'WingSentry' used AI, thermal imaging, and bioacoustic technology to read flight patterns and ecological activity that are hard for people to see, turning that data into information that could be used directly in designing tourist routes. Rather than blocking tourism, it checked the birds' paths first and adjusted human paths accordingly — turning conservation from a restriction into a standard for designing better travel.

WingSentry uses thermal cameras, bioacoustic sensors, and AI to read bird behavior that people can't see, then turns it into simple route advice for tour operators. Built by biologists and conservation researchers, it lets birdwatching tourism grow without trampling the nests it depends on. In Colombia — the world's most bird-diverse country — field tests analyzed over 116 hours of recordings and 50 million data points to steer visitors around nesting zones. The result reframes conservation as an opportunity: protect the birds, and the tourism thrives.

Colombia holds nearly 20% of the world's bird species, making it the top birdwatching destination on Earth, and the campaign frames eco-tourism as a legal, sustainable alternative to "illicit crop economies" — a euphemism for coca/cocaine cultivation in rural regions. The hero species, the Oilbird (Steatornis caripensis), is a nocturnal, echolocating cave bird whose heat signature is the literal subject of the thermal-scanning technology.