Toward Re-Identifying Any Animal

The current state of re-identification (ReID) models poses limitations to their applicability in the open world, as they are primarily designed and trained for specific categories like person or vehicle. In light of the importance of ReID technology for tracking wildlife populations and migration patterns, we propose a new task called ``Re-identify Any Animal in the Wild'' (ReID-AW). This task aims to develop a ReID model capable of handling any unseen wildlife category it encounters. To address this challenge, we have created a comprehensive dataset called Wildlife-71, which includes ReID data from 71 different wildlife categories. This dataset is the first of its kind to encompass multiple object categories in the realm of ReID. Furthermore, we have developed a universal re-identification model named UniReID specifically for the ReID-AW task. To enhance the model's adaptability to the target category, we employ a dynamic prompting mechanism using category-specific visual prompts. These prompts are generated based on knowledge gained from a set of pre-selected images within the target category. Additionally, we leverage explicit semantic knowledge derived from the large-scale pre-trained language model, GPT-4. This allows UniReID to focus on regions that are particularly useful for distinguishing individuals within the target category. Extensive experiments have demonstrated the remarkable generalization capability of our UniReID model. It showcases promising performance in handling arbitrary wildlife categories, offering significant advancements in the field of ReID for wildlife conservation and research purposes.