To save Madagascar's singing lemurs, scientists learned to count a forest by its songs

The indri is the world's largest lemur, the only lemur that sings — and one of the most endangered primates on Earth. It cannot survive in captivity, so the only way to save it is to protect it in Madagascar's forests, starting with knowing how many are left. In the Maromizaha protected area, local guides helped University of Turin researchers fix 26 recording units to trees for 13 months. An AI model picked out 5,395 possible songs, and after careful correction the team estimated 5.55 indri groups per square kilometre — close to the known figure of 6.17, proving the listening method works. 'Every song we detect is a data point that could guide where conservation efforts need to go next,' says researcher Valeria Ferrario.

SDG 15 · Life on land — Mechanism: tech innovation