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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · 6d

🕊️ Dr. Goodall transformed how we see the natural world and our place within it. Her courage, curiosity, and deep listening to other species inspire the heart of our mission at Earth Species Project. We will miss her dearly.

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · 8d

🌍 For the first time, we asked the world what they want from AI that can decode animal communication.

The answer? 70% want to know what animals think and feel.

The world is ready to listen. Read the report for more insights: www.earthspecies.org/blog/what-th...

What the World Thinks About AI and Animal Communication: Findings from Our First Global Survey - Earth Species Project

For the first time, we asked the world what it wants from a future where AI helps us understand animal communication. Surveying 1,057 people across 67 countries, we discovered remarkable global consen...

www.earthspecies.org

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · 22d

4/ We hope these findings provide a clear and practical roadmap for others to build on. Generalizable bioacoustic encoders will help researchers tackle deeper, more nuanced questions in #AnimalCommunication – going beyond just species classification and detection.

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · 22d

3/ 🐘🗣️ Data diversity is crucial: Training on a mix of bioacoustic + general audio outperformed using only bioacoustic data alone.

This is important to boost performance, but also helps address data scarcity.

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · 22d

2/ We provide a practical 2-stage training recipe that performed strongest to help build more robust encoders designed for real-world ethology tasks:
1️⃣ Self-supervised pre-training
2️⃣ Supervised post-training

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · 22d

1/ Our paper “What Matters for Bioacoustic Encoding” explores which training approaches matter most for building a generalizable bioacoustic encoder. We tested 19 models across 26 datasets and introduce a new evaluation benchmark. 📄 arxiv.org/abs/2508.11845

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · 22d

💡 How can we build #AI models that generalize across species + tasks? 🐦🐋🐒

This is a fundamental question for our work at ESP and it’s the topic of our most recent paper and blog post: www.earthspecies.org/blog/what-ma...

🧵Read below for more👇

What Matters for Bioacoustic Encoding: A Practical Training Recipe for Building Generalizable Models - Earth Species Project

To better understand what matters for building a generalizable bioacoustic encoder, we tested 19 models across 26 datasets and a new evaluation benchmark. Our main finding is that a two-stage training...

www.earthspecies.org

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · Sep 4

🐋🐦🐸 We just launched an interactive demo of NatureLM-audio on @hf.co!

👉 Try the demo with your audio or ours, share your feedback, and help us shape the future of decoding animal communication: huggingface.co/blog/EarthSp...

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · Aug 28

⚠️ Deadline extended— submit by Sept. 5th!

There is still time to apply to be a part of the AI and Non-Human Animal Communication workshop at @neuripsconf.bsky.social.

🔗 Learn more & apply: aiforanimalcomms.org

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · Aug 20

Join us at @neuripsconf.bsky.social 2025 🔉

There is still time to apply to be a part of the AI for Non-Human Animal Communication workshop!

Submit your proposals on the intersection of AI & bioacoustics by Aug. 31 and learn more at aiforanimalcomms.org

Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · Aug 4

📢 Call for Submissions

ESP is hosting the AI for Non-Human Animal Communication workshop at @neuripsconf.bsky.social 2025! We welcome short papers & proposals that explore the use of AI in understanding animal communication.

🗓️ Deadline: Aug 31, 2025
🔗 aiforanimalcomms.org

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · Aug 14

cc: @australianmuseum.bsky.social @jodirowley.bsky.social

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · Aug 14

FrogID tested our NatureLM-audio model to help verify frog calls from the public. Even without fine-tuning, it could save 300+ hrs of work yearly— and it even excelled on tasks it wasn't trained for. 🐸💡

www.earthspecies.org/blog/listeni...

Listening for Frogs at Scale: How FrogID Evaluated NatureLM-Audio on Real-World Data - Earth Species Project

FrogID, the world’s largest frog-focused citizen science project, tested Earth Species Project’s open-source NatureLM-audio model to help automate the validation of frog vocalizations submitted by the...

www.earthspecies.org

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · Aug 12

Over 8 million species share our planet—and until now we’ve only understood one.

We've proposed a talk at #SXSW2026 all about how AI is helping us listen to the voices of nature.

If you'd like to see us there, click the heart on our proposal to vote💚 ⬇️
participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sx...

PanelPicker | SXSW Conference & Festivals

PanelPicker® is the official SXSW user-generated session proposal platform. Enter ideas and vote to help shape Conference programming for SXSW and SXSW EDU.

participate.sxsw.com

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · Aug 4

📢 Call for Submissions

ESP is hosting the AI for Non-Human Animal Communication workshop at @neuripsconf.bsky.social 2025! We welcome short papers & proposals that explore the use of AI in understanding animal communication.

🗓️ Deadline: Aug 31, 2025
🔗 aiforanimalcomms.org

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · Aug 1

What if we could decipher the voices of other species?

ESP co-founder & Board member Katie Zacarian joins Ben Goldsmith on Rewilding the World to explore how frontier AI is decoding animal communication—and what it could mean for interspecies connection👇🏽
tinyurl.com/32czw4zu

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · Jul 28

To truly share this planet requires a shift in how we think, act, and connect across species.

This #WorldConservationDay, we're reflecting on this responsibility, which is at the core of our mission, and reinforced by the perspective Christiana brings as the newest member of our board.

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · Jul 17

For the first time, a non-primate species has been proven to use gestures to signal what they want. 🐘🍎

New work led by @vestaeleuteri.bsky.social at @univie.ac.at‪ marks a key milestone in animal communication, showing elephants are capable of goal-directed intentionality.

tinyurl.com/yc3a2vew

Elephants gesture to signal what they want—just like us

New experiments show elephants use a wide range of movements to express their desires

tinyurl.com

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · Jul 11

Thanks to‪ @louromain.bsky.social & Circle of Voices for including ESP’s perspective on #UNOC2025.

Listen to hear Jane Lawton (at 54:34) share reflections and learnings we’re taking forward as we continue our work to decode animal communication.
tinyurl.com/bdcu32ac

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · Jul 2

Last quarter we celebrated big wins—from open-sourcing NatureLM-audio to launching new partnerships & projects.

Today, we look ahead to a new chapter as Katie Zacarian passes the baton after 3 incredible years of leadership.

Read more: mailchi.mp/a5d101927fdd...

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · Jun 30

We’re partnering with @raincoast.org to explore how killer whales communicate in an evolving ocean environment.

Combining aerial & underwater data, we're building a robust dataset leveraging AI to analyze 10+ years of bioacoustic recordings.

Read more: www.earthspecies.org/blog/decodin...

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · Jun 25

We're welcoming Christiana Figueres to our Board.

A global leader in climate diplomacy, Christiana brings a fierce commitment to systems change—and a shared vision for humanity that centers the natural world.

Join the conversation: www.earthspecies.org/donate

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · Jun 13

We're compiling a list of all our collaborators, staff & partners in one place. Check out our StarterPack to connect with some of the key voices in animal communication, AI, bioacoustics & ethology👇🏽

Let us know if we missed anyone & please share to help us grow the community 🔊 🌎
go.bsky.app/AdivEXH

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · Jun 6

ESP is headed to Nice for #UNOC2025 🌊

Catch us throughout the week as we co-host, listen to, and learn from sessions exploring how humans interact with the natural world—and how we can help drive momentum toward systems that support a more resilient ocean and planet.

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · Jun 4

2024 was a pivotal year for ESP—we launched new models & benchmarks, open-sourced NatureLM-audio, and led key conversations on interspecies understanding.

Dive into our 2024 Annual Report for a glimpse into our progress ⬇️
tinyurl.com/44c9r2sa

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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · May 28

AI provides the opportunity to equip animal communication researchers with new capabilities.

Thanks @omarg.bsky.social for celebrating how advancements like Laela Sayigh's award-winning work & ESP's models are helping break down interspecies language barriers.

www.cnet.com/science/want...

Dolphin Researchers Win $100,000 AI Prize for Studying Their Whistling

Scientists studied a dolphin community in Florida, uncovering evidence of language-like communication between the aquatic mammals.

www.cnet.com

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