An Automated Population Monitoring Framework for Larus ridibundus in Kunming City Based on Improved YOLOv8 and ByteTrack

The Larus ridibundus (L. ridibundus), a prominent part of Kunming’s landscape, attracts many tourists and boosts the local tourism industry. Effective population monitoring of this species matters for wetland environment evaluation, biodiversity conservation, and ecological civilization construction. Currently, L. ridibundus population statistics mainly rely on manual methods, which are labor-intensive and inefficient. To overcome these limits, we propose a deep learning (DL) framework. It automatically recognizes and counts L. ridibundus by combining CDSP2-YOLOv8n with ByteTrack, aiming to efficiently monitor their population metrics. Our framework uses the optimized YOLOv8n model to achieve excellent multi-object detection for this species. It also uses ByteTrack to effectively reduce target loss from occlusion or overlap during the birds’ flight, providing a sophisticated DL approach for population monitoring. Experimental results show the modified CDSP2-YOLOv8n model works well on the collected L. ridibundus multi-object detection dataset. Its mAP@0.5, mAP@0.5:0.95, Precision, and Recall reach 0.9705, 0.6557, 0.9685, and 0.9496, respectively. When combined with ByteTrack, the proposed framework achieved a Multiple Object Tracking Accuracy (MOTA) of 89.7% and a Multiple Object Tracking Precision (MOTP) of 83.5%. It also demonstrated superior performance in terms of IDF1, Mostly Tracked (MT), Mostly Lost (ML), and Identity Switches (IDSs). Compared to manual counting, our framework has an average accuracy of 91.58%, greatly enhancing the efficiency and accuracy of L. ridibundus population monitoring. In summary, we successfully achieved the automated recognition and counting of L. ridibundus. The proposed method accurately identifies and consistently tracks individual birds, enabling effective population counting. It provides a novel and comprehensive technical approach for the monitoring and conservation of this species and demonstrates promising potential for practical applications.