SEALNET: Facial recognition software for ecological studies of harbor seals.

Methods for long-term monitoring of coastal species such as harbor seals () are often costly, time-consuming, and highly invasive, underscoring the need for improved techniques for data collection and analysis. Here, we propose the use of automated facial recognition technology for identification of individual seals and demonstrate its utility in ecological and population studies. We created a software package, SealNet, that automates photo identification of seals, using a graphical user interface (GUI) software to detect, align, and chip seal faces from photographs and a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) suitable for small datasets (e.