# Counting Cows: Tracking Illegal Cattle Ranching From High-Resolution Satellite Imagery

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.07369 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.07369/

## Key facts

- Cited by 10 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 14 Nov 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 10 of 10)

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- [Application of deep learning for livestock behaviour recognition: A systematic literature review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.13483/) (2023)
- [Enhancing Environmental Enforcement with Near Real-Time Monitoring: Likelihood-Based Detection of Structural Expansion of Intensive Livestock Farms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.14159/) (2021)
- [Detecting Cattle and Elk in the Wild from Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.15448/) (2021)
- [Manipulating UAV Imagery for Satellite Model Training, Calibration and Testing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.11447/) (2022)
- [Computer vision system to count crustacean larvae](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.05834/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Cattle farming is responsible for 8.8% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. In addition to the methane emitted due to their digestive process, the growing need for grazing areas is an important driver of deforestation. While some regulations are in place for preserving the Amazon against deforestation, these are being flouted in various ways, hence the need to scale and automate the monitoring of cattle ranching activities. Through a partnership with textitGlobal Witness, we explore the feasibility of tracking and counting cattle at the continental scale from satellite imagery. With a license from Maxar Technologies, we obtained satellite imagery of the Amazon at 40cm resolution, and compiled a dataset of 903 images containing a total of 28498 cattle. Our experiments show promising results and highlight important directions for the next steps on both counting algorithms and the data collection process for solving such challenges. The code is available at urlhttps://github.com/IssamLaradji/cownterstrike.