Aussie researchers create app for int'l bird identification

Australian researchers working in an international team have created an app to help protect birdlife by breaking down language barriers within the global scientific community.

Their research, published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE and revealed to the public on Thursday, described how the Bird Language Diversity app would ensure vital information to be shared among 120 languages from every country in the world.

University of Queensland (UQ) ecologist Dr. Pablo Negret said researchers in the translate project had analyzed more than 10,000 bird species and found ornithological facts often "got lost in translation."

"Scientific information on species can be scattered across different languages, and valuable information can go missing," Negret said, adding that this could "compromise conservation measures."

Negret gave an example of a duck, known in English as the common pochard, found in more than 100 countries across Europe, Asia and Africa, where it is referred to in 75 official languages.

"The survival of the common pochard, and so many other species, depends on effective collaboration and policy agreements among people with diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds," he said.

"We hope the app will incentivize researchers and conservation organizations to interact with their peers in other regions ... and be a starting point to allow everyone to work together."

Fellow UQ researcher Dr. Tatsuya Amano said the project could also be used for other international conservation work.

"Any species, whether it's mammals, amphibians, or plants, with a range spanning multiple countries will be impacted by language barriers, as will species that migrate across different countries, such as marine species and butterflies," Amano said.

"We really hope our work will shed more light on the importance of overcoming these barriers to better conserve life on Earth."