How AI camera traps help restore Floreana in the Galápagos
A camera trap captures an interaction between frigatebirds and an iguana. Photo Credit: Island Conservation / Doug Gillings
On Floreana in Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands, conservationists are preparing for the return of the Floreana mockingbird. A network of cameras, traps and animal trackers helps rangers watch for invasive animals and follow native wildlife. Island Conservation, a nonprofit that restores island ecosystems, estimates that the system has saved conservationists 86 days of work between its January 2026 deployment and the October announcement.
In October, the Smart Island Monitoring System was named a top-50 finalist in the 2026 Premios Verdes, which recognises environmental and social projects across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Why Floreana’s native wildlife needs help
At Cormorant Point, olivine crystals give one beach a green tint, while nearby Flour Beach is made of fine coral sand and provides a nesting site for green sea turtles. Flamingos feed in a brackish lagoon behind the shore. Inland, Floreana’s volcanic highlands support plants found only in the Galápagos. Offshore, the eroded volcanic crater known as Devil’s Crown shelters coral habitat used by fish, rays and sharks.
Two nearby islets, Champion and Gardner-by-Floreana, hold the world’s remaining Floreana mockingbirds. The bird disappeared from the main island in the 19th century, probably because of habitat changes and introduced predators such as rats and feral cats.
Bringing the mockingbird back means restoring habitat as well as controlling predators. The Charles Darwin Foundation, a nonprofit research organisation, has planted 577 seedlings from eight native species in a 2.5-hectare corridor to help prepare for the bird’s return. The mockingbird is one of 12 species the Floreana Ecological Restoration Project aims to reintroduce. The Galápagos National Park Directorate and the archipelago’s biosecurity agency lead the project, with the foundation, Ecuadorian conservation organisation Fundación Jocotoco and Island Conservation carrying out the work.
How AI camera traps alert Floreana’s rangers
As teams restore habitat, camera traps help them keep track of which animals are present and where. When an animal passes a camera, wpsWatch, a platform from conservation technology organisation Wildlife Protection Solutions, uses AI to screen the resulting photograph. If it flags a species the team is looking for, it can send an alert through WhatsApp and EarthRanger, a conservation monitoring platform provided by the nonprofit Allen Institute for AI (Ai2).
EarthRanger also brings trap status updates and animal locations together with camera detections and ranger patrol records. To carry updates from traps and trackers, conservation technology nonprofit Smart Parks helped set up an island-wide network using LoRaWAN, a wireless standard that sends small amounts of data over long distances with little power.
The cameras captured more than 600,000 images between January and October. With detections reaching rangers directly, Island Conservation says finding a particular animal can now take hours or days, compared with weeks or months before.
Giant tortoises return to Floreana
The project’s first reintroduction brought giant tortoises back to Floreana in February 2026, after an absence of more than 180 years. The 158 juveniles descended from tortoises carrying Floreana ancestry that researchers identified on Wolf Volcano, on the Galápagos island of Isabela.
The returning tortoises can help restore the landscape as they feed and roam. Their grazing helps keep areas open, while the seeds they disperse can take root elsewhere, renewing processes that helped shape Floreana’s habitat before the tortoises disappeared.
The tortoises’ return marks a milestone for Floreana, while the monitoring system’s selection as a top-50 finalist in the 2026 Premios Verdes brings the rangers’ work to a wider audience across Latin America and the Caribbean. For other islands restoring native wildlife, Floreana offers a practical example of how connected cameras, traps and trackers can help field teams decide where to look and when to act.