BuckTales: A multi-UAV dataset for multi-object tracking and re-identification of wild antelopes

Abstract

Understanding animal behaviour is central to predicting, understanding, and miti- gating impacts of natural and anthropogenic changes on animal populations and ecosystems. However, the challenges of acquiring and processing long-term, eco- logically relevant data in wild settings have constrained the scope of behavioural research. The increasing availability of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), cou- pled with advances in machine learning, has opened new opportunities for wildlife monitoring using aerial tracking. However, the limited availability of datasets with wild animals in natural habitats has hindered progress in automated computer vision solutions for long-term animal tracking. Here, we introduce the first large-scale UAV dataset designed to solve multi-object tracking (MOT) and re-identification (Re-ID) problem in wild animals, specifically the mating behaviour (or lekking) of blackbuck antelopes. Collected in collaboration with biologists, the MOT dataset includes over 1.2 million annotations including 680 tracks across 12 high-resolution (5.4K) videos, each averaging 66 seconds and featuring 30 to 130 individuals. The Re-ID dataset includes 730 individuals captured with two UAVs simultaneously. The dataset is designed to drive scalable, long-term animal behavior tracking using multiple camera sensors. By providing baseline performance with two detectors, and benchmarking several state-of-the-art tracking methods, our dataset reflects the real-world challenges of tracking wild animals in socially and ecologically relevant contexts. In making these data widely available, we hope to catalyze progress in MOT and Re-ID for wild animals, fostering insights into animal behaviour, conser- vation efforts, and ecosystem dynamics through automated, long-term monitoring.