SURREY AI IMAGINGWildlife Habitat Explorer
Black Forest (DE) — —
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How to use the Wildlife Habitat Explorer

A satellite-powered map for hunters. Real Earth-observation layers show where habitat is good, and live conditions show when to go.

  1. Start on the globe. It spins until you touch it. Press ✈ Fly to Black Forest pilot to zoom into the pilot region.
  2. Switch layers on in "Layers & filters" (left). Each layer has a toggle, an opacity slider and a legend. Layers marked REAL are satellite or official data; DEMO layers are fabricated placeholders.
  3. Read the live conditions (right). Wind, temperature, rain, sunrise/sunset, legal daylight window and moon phase are for the map centre. Click any spot to get conditions there. The green advice box tells you where to stand so your scent drifts away from game.
  4. Preview the habitat score with ▶ Preview habitat score model. Small patches are coloured by score (yellow = low, dark green = high); zoomed out they show as dots. Use the slider to hide weak patches and click one: "Why this score" shows each indicator's value, its weight and the points it adds.
  5. Search a place (top left of the map): type a town, village, mountain or coordinates like "48.28, 8.17" and press Enter. Labels shows place names and roads on the satellite map.
  6. Go back in time with "Dataset date", for example Sentinel-2 imagery from 2016 to 2024 or crop maps from 2017 to 2024.
  7. Load your own Revier (left panel) as a GeoJSON file to outline your hunting ground and get conditions there. It never leaves your browser.
  8. Export the visible polygons as GeoJSON, or Copy view to share coordinates.

Three different questions

Layer A · habitat
Is this a good place for the species? Satellite indicators, weeks to seasons. (The habitat score.)
Layer B · use
Is the species using it now? Needs sightings and camera data, coming with partner hunting grounds.
Layer C · activity
Will I see one on this visit? Wind, weather, light, time of day. (The live conditions.)

What each layer means

Sentinel-2 scenes by date (true colour, NDVI, cloud mask)
The real Sentinel-2 picture of ONE day, 10 m, exactly like the Copernicus Browser. Pick the day with the "Date" box in the layer row. 5 Oct is clear; 22 Oct shows clouds (turn on the cloud mask to see them classified). Zoom in past level 8 to see it.
Sentinel-2 cloud-free yearly mosaic
One clean picture per year (2016–2024, EOX), with all clouds removed by combining many dates. Good as a background, but it is not a single day.
Vegetation greenness (NDVI, NASA)
Coarse 250 m greenness averaged over 8 days (NASA MODIS). Good for the big picture; for field-level detail use the Sentinel-2 NDVI layer.
Daily satellite view (NASA VIIRS)
A 375 m picture of Europe from about 2 days ago, showing current cloud and snow. Very blurry when zoomed in; black means no image for that strip yet.
Crop types (DLR)
Which crop grows in each field, 2017 to 2024. Maize and cereals attract wild boar.
Canopy cover and height (DLR)
How closed and how tall the forest is: shelter, shade, young vs mature forest.
Clearings & canopy loss (DLR)
Where trees were lost 2018 to 2021. Clearings regrow fresh food that deer seek.
Tree cover density (Copernicus)
Percentage of tree cover across Europe.
Protected areas
Reserves, national parks and Natura 2000 sites, where hunting may be restricted.
Habitat score (demo)
Will combine vegetation, moisture, forest structure, clearings, farmland and water into one 0–100 score per area. Coming from SAIIL's Sentinel-2 processing.

Scores are relative habitat indices, not probabilities of seeing an animal. Good habitat is not permission to hunt: hunt only in your authorised Revier and in the open season. Satellites cannot see the animals themselves.