China is using facial recognition to track and monitor giant PANDAS for ...

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Surveillance isn't the only application of China's advanced facial recognition software. 

Conservationists are now using the technology too, as a tool to help protect wild panda populations.

According to a report from Xinhua News, researchers at the China Conservation and Research Center for Giant Pandas in Chengu have begun using facial recognition software to identify the often similar-looking faces and markings of wild pandas.

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'The app and database will help us gather more precise and well-rounded data on the population, distribution, ages, gender ratio, birth and deaths of wild pandas, who live in deep mountains and are hard to track,' researcher Chen Peng told Xinhua News.

'It will definitely help us improve efficiency and effectiveness in conservation and management of the animals.'

Like other facial recognition databases, the researchers' panda-identifying app pools from a large bank of photos to help it learn and recognize one animal from another.

In all, says the Xinhua News report, the database contains 120,000 images and 10,000 video clips. Of those images, 10,000 have been marked and annotated.  

The app will also be made available to visitors of the Chengu's research center where many pandas are kept in captivity. 

Those attendees will be able to use the app to scan a panda and pull up more information.

As reported by The Verge, similar technology has been used to track other bears as well as lemurs in an effort to help conserve populations.

Giant pandas, long an endangered species, were downgraded to 'vulnerable' in 2016, due to conservation efforts that helped raise the population by 17 percent in one decade.

Conservationists are quick to note, however, that panda's status is still imperiled, most notably by the specter of a rapidly changing

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