ace‘There were stoats in kitchen cupboards’: AI deployed to help save Orkney’s birds
At first, the stoat looks like a faint smudge in the distance. But, as it jumps closer, its sleek body is identified by a heat-detecting camera and, with it, an alert goes out to Orkney’s stoat hunters. Aided by an artificial intelligence programme trained to detect a stoat’s sinuous shape and movement, trapping teams are dispatched with the explicit aim of finding and killing it. It is the most sophisticated technology deployed in one of the world’s largest mammal eradication projects, which has the aim of dete…
On Orkney in far north Scotland, RSPB Scotland deployed an AI programme that identifies stoats on heat-detecting cameras and sends alerts to trapping teams via computers and mobile apps. The tool supports a 10-year, £16m eradication effort using thousands of traps and detection dogs to remove invasive stoats that arrived around 2011 and spread across 58,000 hectares.
Protection matters because Orkney hosts 11% of UK breeding seabirds and about 25% of hen harriers and the only Orkney voles, all threatened by stoats that raid nests and burrows. Early results to October 2025 show recovery signals for curlews and voles, but the article notes at least 30 cameras will soon be staked out, indicating the AI network was not yet fully built and long-term eradication success is still pending.
- Project uses 9,000 lethal traps and eight specially trained tracking and detection dogs and has dispatched nearly 8,000 stoats over six years
- At least 30 digital cameras will soon be staked out across moors and coasts building network to computers and mobile apps
- Orkney is less than 1% of UK land area but holds about 11% of UK breeding seabirds and about 25% of hen harriers and is only place with Orkney voles
- Feasibility study warned if stoats spread across all Orkney islands it would be financially and logistically impossible to control them
- Project budget is £16m with 46 staff and planned to last at least 10 years from 2019
AI trained to recognize stoat shape and movement on heat-detecting cameras triggers alerts to trapping teams, supporting an eradication effort that by October 2025 was associated with a 1,267% increase in curlew hatching chance on Orkney mainland
The rundown
By October 2025 conservationists on Orkney mainland were using heat-detecting cameras linked to an AI programme trained to detect stoats' sinuous shape and movement to alert trapping teams. The system is part of the Orkney Native Wildlife Project run by RSPB Scotland, which since 2019 has used 9,000 lethal traps and eight detection dogs to kill nearly 8,000 stoats after the species arrived around 2011 and spread across 58,000 hectares including Burray and South Ronaldsay.
Orkney matters because it holds a disproportionate share of UK breeding seabirds, hen harriers, Arctic terns and the endemic Orkney vole, all vulnerable because stoats have no predators on the islands. Survey data reported by the project by publication date showed large increases in curlew hatchings, vole activity and hen harrier numbers, but the AI camera network itself was described as a future expansion, so its independent contribution to those gains remains uncertain.
Sources
- JournalismThe Guardian2025-10-18
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