The website, meanwhile, is powerful whether or not you're a researcher. You can explore about 4.5 million images (as of this writing) using a map with helpful filters for species, countries, dates and specific projects. If you want to find pictures of giraffes in Kenya, you can go directly to the camera traps that spotted them.

Google's database will only be as useful as the number of uploads, and there's no guarantee this will lead to meaningful conservation efforts. However, this does give policy makers a better chance of making more informed decisions that could curb animal population losses and, hopefully, spare some species from the threat of extinction.