Preserving the Wild
by Rajeevan Madabushi, Ritika Namilikonda and Scott William Mobarry
Recognizing the Crisis:
Today, we stand at a pivotal moment in our planet’s history, facing a challenge that echoes the gravity of past mass extinction events. With species disappearing and habitats dwindling at an alarming rate, the need for public awareness and action in wildlife conservation has never been more urgent.
It’s imperative for each of us to not only recognize the seriousness of this crisis but also to actively engage with the conservation efforts underway. Understanding the current state of our wildlife, the threats they face, and the measures being taken to protect them is the first step towards fostering an informed and proactive society. Our planet’s rich biodiversity is more than just an ecological asset; it’s integral to our survival and well-being. The loss of species and habitats poses real risks, impacting everything from human health to global economies. Thus, engaging in wildlife conservation is not just an environmental responsibility; it’s necessary for a sustainable future.
Through this blog, we aim to offer a comprehensive and accessible exploration of wildlife conservation trends. By engagingly presenting research and insights, we aim to enlighten and motivate readers to understand and value the importance of this issue.
Sketching the Visual Blueprint:
We began our project by brainstorming to find a compelling concept. As a team, we unanimously chose Wildlife conservation due to our shared passion for the cause. The initial phase involved a considerable amount of time dedicated to sourcing relevant data. Once we obtained the necessary data, we sketched several designs outlining how we envisioned our visualizations. Subsequently, we delved into the development phase, creating visual representations of our ideas. A beta release featuring some of these visualizations was launched, followed by the completion of the remaining project components. Later on, we conducted a comprehensive literature review to gather feedback from our intended audience. Considering the valuable input received, we made final adjustments to the project before preparing for its ultimate release.
Explaining the Red List Categories:
Our project delves into five distinct Red List categories. The ‘Total Assessed’ signifies the overall count of species evaluated in a given year, encompassing various categories like Extinct, Extinct in the wild, Lower Risk, Near Threatened, Least Concerned, and Data Deficient in addition to the red list categories that we have used in our project. However, our focus narrowed down to the four critical categories: Critically Endangered, Endangered, Vulnerable, and Threatened, alongside the ‘Total Assessed.’ Among these, ‘Critically Endangered’ stands as the most precarious category, signifying immediate peril and the urgent need for intervention, as a species teeters on the brink of extinction. ‘Endangered’ follows closely, followed by ‘Vulnerable,’ and finally, ‘Threatened.’ This hierarchy underlines the varying degrees of risk these species face within our project’s scope.
Literature Review:
We dedicated substantial time to thoroughly exploring the existing body of research and work within the realm of wildlife conservation. Our investigation involved a meticulous review of approximately 15 research papers and blogs, enabling us to provide a comprehensive overview of the ongoing research in this field. This phase of our project centered on delving into the contemporary landscape of wildlife conservation, synthesizing insights from various research articles to grasp the present scenario and the future trajectory in this crucial domain.
Crafting Initial Visualizations:
We crafted initial visualizations using the gathered data, serving as a foundational blueprint for our final project. One of these is an interactive line chart, designed to provide insights into trends among individual genera and species across various red list categories over time. Below is the design we devised for this visualization.
Next, our decision led us to employ a personalized radial chart. This specific visualization aimed to depict the cumulative count of species across all genus types within diverse red list categories over time. Here’s an image capturing the essence of the visualization we aimed to create.
Beta Release:
Ahead of the Beta Release, we completed the data cleansing process and successfully developed two distinct charts: the interactive line chart and the radial chart. Additionally, we outlined our roadmap for future releases, identifying both bugs that require attention and areas where we aim to make significant advancements.
Peer Evaluation:
We took three interviews focusing on different groups of people based on their involvement in wildlife preservation. We created a few questions that we asked our users to attempt on both the IUCN website and our charts and recorded their time to complete each task on each website and respond. Here is the list of questions we have asked our users:
We’ve calculated the time it took for the users to complete each task in our visualizations and the IUCN Red List website and on average the users were able to answer these questions 7 seconds faster on our visualizations. We’ve also collected some feedback during this phase and started working on these fixes for our final project release.
Final Release:
In our ultimate release, we addressed the identified bugs and implemented alterations based on insights gleaned from user feedback sessions. Consolidating all our separate charts, we transformed them into a cohesive website that is now live and hosted.
We ensured our website’s accessibility across both mobile devices and computers without the need for any styling adjustments. Here are a few screenshots of what the website looks like.
Demo:
You can access our website through this link.
Take Aways:
- Our primary project goal centers around enhancing public understanding of wildlife endangerment trends using data sourced from the IUCN Red List.
- Our emphasis lies in showcasing species trends across various categories, aiming to evoke immediate awareness and concern.
- We’ve noticed a substantial rise in the number of species evaluated each year, as depicted in our initial radial chart. This increase signals promising progress. The fact that numerous new species are undergoing assessment annually indicates a positive shift. It demonstrates our concerted effort and commitment toward our goal of safeguarding as much wildlife as we can.
- The second radial chart highlights a concerning trend: as the assessment of species grows annually, there’s a noticeable surge in the number of species falling into different red list categories. This rapid increase is worrying, demanding immediate attention from everyone involved. It underscores the urgency of this situation and the pressing need for action.
- The line chart provides a clear insight into how species are categorized across different red list categories. It’s evident from these charts that over the years, each genus has experienced a decline as more species within that genus are assessed. This trend underscores a concerning pattern of diminishing numbers within individual genera as assessments increase.
Challenges:
- Gathering data for a project of this nature poses challenges as it entails sourcing information from numerous outlets, potentially requiring web scraping from multiple websites, and consulting various textbooks.
- When we began web scraping, we focused on one website initially. However, we soon realized that the information we need is scattered across numerous websites. To compile detailed data for each mammal genus — like elephants, lions, tigers, and others — we’d have to scrape multiple sites for each specific animal. Gathering all this information presents a significant challenge due to its wide distribution across various online sources.
- Attempting to utilize data from the IUCN website proved challenging. Navigating through the site to access the precise data using appropriate filters was quite difficult. The complexity of using the IUCN website added to the challenge of obtaining the required information efficiently.
Future Scope:
- Expand data collection and introduce additional visualizations to enhance the clarity of the current subject matter. We aim to incorporate new data without complicating the comprehension of ongoing trends. We plan to achieve this by providing more detailed information upon clicking specific elements, rather than overwhelming the general audience with an excess of information upfront.
- Develop web scraping bots to gather valuable information and establish a comprehensive database to store this data. Then, integrate the website with this database to enable automatic updates of the visualizations. This automation will streamline the presentation of wildlife conservation visuals on our website.
- Ensure broader accessibility for the website by implementing voice assistance along with features like high contrast modes, and text-to-speech capabilities.
References:
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) (Version 2023–1). Title of the specific page. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Retrieved from https://www.iucnredlist.org/
