README.md

---
license: cc0-1.0
language:
- en
pretty_name: mmla_wilds
task_categories: [image-classification]
tags:
- biology
- image
- animals
- CV
- drone
- zebra
size_categories: 10K<n<100K
---


# Dataset Card for mmla-wilds

<!-- Provide a quick summary of what the dataset is or can be used for. --> 

## Dataset Details
This is a dataset containing annotated video frames of giraffes, Grevy's zebras, Persian onagers, and African Painted Dogs collected at [The Wilds Conservation Center](https://www.thewilds.org/) in Ohio. The dataset is intended for use in training and evaluating computer vision models for animal detection and classification from drone imagery. The dataset includes frames from various sessions, with annotations indicating the presence of animals in the images in COCO format. The dataset is designed to facilitate research in wildlife monitoring and conservation using autonomous drones.


### Dataset Description

- **Curated by:** Jenna Kline
- **Homepage:** [mmla](https://imageomics.github.io/mmla/)
- **Repository:** [https://github.com/imageomics/mmla](https://github.com/imageomics/mmla)
- **Paper:** [MMLA: Multi-Environment, Multi-Species, Low-Altitude Drone Dataset](https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.07744)

<!-- Provide a longer summary of what this dataset is. -->
This dataset contains video frames collected at [The Wilds Conservation Center](https://www.thewilds.org/) in Ohio, USA, using drones. The Wilds is a 10,000 acre safari park and conservation center that is home to a variety of endangered species. The dataset includes video frames of African Painted Dogs, Giraffes, Persian Onangers, and Grevy's Zebras, captured during different sessions. The dataset is intended for use in training and evaluating computer vision models for animal detection and classification from drone imagery. 


The dataset consists of frames. Each frame is accompanied by annotations in COCO format, indicating the presence of animals and their bounding boxes within the images. The annotations were completed manually by the dataset curator using [CVAT](https://www.cvat.ai/) and [kabr-tools](https://github.com/Imageomics/kabr-tools).

| Session | Date Collected | Size (pixels) | Total Frames | Species           | Drone Model    | Video IDs
|---------|---------------|---------------|--------------|-------------------|----------------|----------------| 
| `session_1` | 2024-06-14  | 2720 x 1530   | 13,749       | African Painted Dog | DJI Mini     | DJI_0034, DJI_0035 |
| `session_2` | 2024-04-18  | 4096 x 2160   | 4,053        | Persian Onanger   | Parrot Anafi   | P0100010, P0110011,P0080008, P0090009, P0070007, P0160016, P0120012 |
| `session_3`| 2024-07-31  | 3840 x 2160   | 3,436        | Giraffe           | Parrot Anafi   |  P0140018, P0150019|
| `session_4` | 2024-07-31  | 4096 x 2160   | 506          | Grevy's Zebra     | Parrot Anafi   | P0070010 |
| **Total Frames:** |     |               | **21,744**   |                   |                |


This table shows the data collected at [The Wilds Conservation Center](https://www.thewilds.org/) in Ohio, USA, with session information, dates, frame counts, and primary species observed.

The dataset is intended for use in training and evaluating computer vision models for animal detection and classification from drone imagery.



## Dataset Structure
```​
/dataset/
    README.md
    session_1/
        partition_1/
            DJI_0034_000000.jpg
            DJI_0034_000000.txt
            ...
            DJI_0035_003485.txt
        partition_2/
            DJI_0035_003486.jpg
            DJI_0035_003486.txt
            ...
            DJI_0035_006985.txt
        partition_3/
            DJI_0035_006986.jpg
            DJI_0035_006986.txt
            ...
            DJI_0035_010485.txt
        partition_4/
            DJI_0035_010486.jpg
            DJI_0035_010486.txt
            ...
            DJI_0035_013830.txt
    session_2/
        P0140018_000000.jpg
        P0140018_000000.txt
        ...
        P0150019_000326.txt
    session_3/
        P0070007_000000.jpg
        P0070007_000000.txt
        ...
        P0160016_000598.txt
    session_4/
        P0070010_000000.jpg
        P0070010_000000.txt
        ...
        P0070010_000505.txt
```

### Data Instances
All images are names <video_id>_<frame_number>.jpg, each within a folder named for the date of the session. The annotations are in COCO format and are stored in a corresponding .txt file with the same name as the image.  


### Data Fields

**classes.txt**:
  - `0`: zebra
  - `1`: giraffe
  - `2`: onager
  - `3`: dog

**frame_id.txt**:
  - `class`: Class of the object in the image (0 for animal species)
  - `x_center`: X coordinate of the center of the bounding box (normalized to [0, 1])
  - `y_center`: Y coordinate of the center of the bounding box (normalized to [0, 1])
  - `width`: Width of the bounding box (normalized to [0, 1])
  - `height`: Height of the bounding box (normalized to [0, 1])

<!-- ### Data Splits
[More Information Needed] -->
<!--
Give your train-test splits for benchmarking; could be as simple as "split is indicated by the `split` column in the metadata file: `train`, `val`, or `test`." Or perhaps this is just the training dataset and other datasets were used for testing (you may indicate which were used).
-->

## Dataset Creation

### Curation Rationale

<!-- Motivation for the creation of this dataset. For instance, what you intended to study and why that required curation of a new dataset (or if it's newly collected data and why the data was collected (intended use)), etc. -->

The dataset was created to facilitate research in wildlife monitoring and conservation using advanced imaging technologies. The goal is to develop and evaluate computer vision models that can accurately detect and classify animals from drone imagery, and their generalizability across different species and environments.


<!-- ### Source Data -->

<!-- This section describes the source data (e.g., news text and headlines, social media posts, translated sentences, ...). As well as an original source it was created from (e.g., sampling from Zenodo records, compiling images from different aggregators, etc.) -->

#### Data Collection and Processing

<!-- This section describes the data collection and processing process such as data selection criteria, filtering and normalization methods, re-sizing of images, tools and libraries used, etc. 
This is what _you_ did to it following collection from the original source; it will be overall processing if you collected the data initially.
-->

The African Painted Dog missions were collected manually using a [DJI Mavic Mini drone](https://www.dji.com/support/product/mavic-mini), while the Giraffe, Persian Onanger, and Grevy's Zebra missions were collected using a [Parrot Anafi drone](https://www.parrot.com/us/drones/anafi). The Grevy's zebras and giraffe missions were conducted autonomously using the WildWing system, while the Persian onager data was collected manually. The drones were flown over the Wilds Conservation Center in Ohio, capturing video footage of the animals in their natural habitat.


The videos were annotated manually using the Computer Vision Annotation Tool ([CVAT](https://www.cvat.ai/)) and the [kabr-tools](https://github.com/Imageomics/kabr-tools) library. These detection annotations and original video files were then processed to extract individual frames, which were saved as JPEG images. The annotations were converted to COCO format, with bounding boxes indicating the presence of zebras in each frame.

<!-- #### Who are the source data producers?
[More Information Needed] -->
<!-- This section describes the people or systems who originally created the data.

Ex: This dataset is a collection of images taken of the butterfly collection housed at the Ohio State University Museum of Biological Diversity. The associated labels and metadata are the information provided with the collection from biologists that study butterflies and supplied the specimens to the museum.
 -->


### Annotations
<!-- 
If the dataset contains annotations which are not part of the initial data collection, use this section to describe them. 

Ex: We standardized the taxonomic labels provided by the various data sources to conform to a uniform 7-rank Linnean structure. (Then, under annotation process, describe how this was done: Our sources used different names for the same kingdom (both _Animalia_ and _Metazoa_), so we chose one for all (_Animalia_). -->


#### Annotation process
[CVAT](https://www.cvat.ai/) and [kabr-tools](https://github.com/Imageomics/kabr-tools) were used to annotate the video frames. The annotation process involved manually labeling the presence of animals in each frame, drawing bounding boxes around them, and converting the annotations to COCO format.
<!-- This section describes the annotation process such as annotation tools used, the amount of data annotated, annotation guidelines provided to the annotators, interannotator statistics, annotation validation, etc. -->

#### Who are the annotators?

<!-- This section describes the people or systems who created the annotations. -->
Jenna Kline (The Ohio State University) - ORCID: 0009-0006-7301-5774 \
Alison Zhong (The Ohio State University) \
Jake Yablok (The Ohio State University)

### Personal and Sensitive Information
The dataset was cleaned to remove any personal or sensitive information. African Painted Dogs dataset available on request.
<!-- 
For instance, if your data includes people or endangered species. -->


<!-- ## Considerations for Using the Data
[More Information Needed]
<!--
Things to consider while working with the dataset. For instance, maybe there are hybrids and they are labeled in the `hybrid_stat` column, so to get a subset without hybrids, subset to all instances in the metadata file such that `hybrid_stat` is _not_ "hybrid".
-->

<!-- ### Bias, Risks, and Limitations
[More Information Needed] -->
<!-- This section is meant to convey both technical and sociotechnical limitations. Could also address misuse, malicious use, and uses that the dataset will not work well for.-->

<!-- For instance, if your data exhibits a long-tailed distribution (and why). -->

<!-- ### Recommendations
[More Information Needed]
This section is meant to convey recommendations with respect to the bias, risk, and technical limitations. -->

## Licensing Information

This dataset (the compilation) has been marked as dedicated to the public domain by applying the [CC0-1.0 Public Domain Waiver](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). However, images may be licensed under different terms (as noted above).


## Citation


**BibTeX:**


**Data**
```​
@misc{wildwing_wilds,
  author = {  Jenna Kline,
              Alison Zhong,
              Jake Yablok
          },
  title = {WildWing The Wilds Dataset},
  year = {2025},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/imageomics/wildwing-wilds},
  doi = {<doi once generated>},
  publisher = {Hugging Face}
}
```

**Paper**
```​
@article{kline2025wildwing,
  title={WildWing: An open-source, autonomous and affordable UAS for animal behaviour video monitoring},
  author={Kline, Jenna and Zhong, Alison and Irizarry, Kevyn and Stewart, Charles V and Stewart, Christopher and Rubenstein, Daniel I and Berger-Wolf, Tanya},
  journal={Methods in Ecology and Evolution},
  year={2025},
  doi={10.1111/2041-210X.70018},
  publisher={Wiley Online Library}
}
```



## Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the [Imageomics Institute](https://imageomics.org), which is funded by the US National Science Foundation's Harnessing the Data Revolution (HDR) program under [Award #2118240](https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2118240) (Imageomics: A New Frontier of Biological Information Powered by Knowledge-Guided Machine Learning). Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

This work was supported by the AI Institute for Intelligent Cyberinfrastructure with Computational Learning in the Environment [ICICLE](https://icicle.osu.edu/), which is funded by the US National Science Foundation under grant number OAC-2112606.

<!-- You may also want to credit the source of your data, i.e., if you went to a museum or nature preserve to collect it. -->

<!-- ## Glossary  -->

<!-- [optional] If relevant, include terms and calculations in this section that can help readers understand the dataset or dataset card. -->

## More Information 
The data was gathered at [The Wilds Conservation Center](https://www.thewilds.org/) with permission from The Wilds Science Committee to take field observations and fly drones in the pastures.

<!-- [optional] Any other relevant information that doesn't fit elsewhere. -->

## Dataset Card Authors 

Jenna Kline

## Dataset Card Contact

kline.377 at osu.edu
<!-- Could include who to contact with questions, but this is also what the "Discussions" tab is for. -->