Notice change
Regular listening helps communities see when species appear, when activity shifts and which records deserve a closer look.
About the network
Make local wildlife visible enough to matter.
Project S.W.A.N. stands for Scientific Wildlife Acoustic Network. It connects privacy-first listening stations with public information, education and practical local conservation.
The purpose
A shared local record, not another isolated sensor.
Connect evidence to place
Every station belongs to a real site with its own habitat, people, decisions and opportunities for improvement.
Make science approachable
Teachers, pupils, residents and site teams should be able to understand the record without needing specialist acoustic software.
Support better action
The value is not the number of detections alone. It is helping people ask better questions and make better habitat decisions.
Who it is for
Different partners, different jobs.
The platform should not give everyone the same dashboard. Each group needs a workspace built around what they actually do.
Schools
Turn live records into learning
Teachers use child-friendly live views, classes, assignments and resources rather than technical node controls.
Reserves and communities
Link observations to site work
Partner Hubs record habitat actions, review station coverage and generate reports for local stakeholders.
Researchers
Inspect and export controlled data
Approved researchers can examine coverage, confidence and trends with the limitations kept visible.
Sponsors
Fund a station and follow delivery
Sponsors choose approved requests, follow build milestones and see the public wildlife impact of live stations.
Public visitors
Explore without an account
The live network, discoveries, field notes, missions and journal remain understandable without exposing private operational data.
S.W.A.N. operations
Keep the network reliable
Administrators manage hardware, stations, privacy, users, communications, funding and releases in one control centre.
Project principles
Useful, cautious and privacy-first.
S.W.A.N. is designed around a few boundaries that should remain true as the network grows.
Wildlife monitoring, not human surveillance
Audio handling should minimise human speech and public clips require appropriate controls.
Automated detections are evidence, not certainty
Confidence, context and limitations must stay visible.
Local partners should receive something useful
A station should support teaching, reporting or site decisions—not just collect rows in a database.
Public information should remain understandable
People should be able to explore the network without needing a technical background.
Take part
Host, sponsor, teach with or study the network.
The joining route asks what your site or organisation needs before treating every partner the same.