MegaDetector v6 Model Weights for YOLOv8/YOLOv9/YOLOv11 Fine-Tuning

[ChaimElchik]

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• I have searched the Pytorch-Wildlife issues and found no similar bug report.

Question

Hi everyone,

I’m working on a project that involves fine-tuning models for animal detection and tracking in drone-shot videos. So far, I’ve been using YOLOv8 and YOLOv11 with COCO dataset weights as a base, followed by fine-tuning with my custom data.

I’d like to explore using MegaDetector v6 model weights as a base model for fine-tuning and training instead, given its specialized focus on wildlife detection. However, I haven’t found a straightforward way to download these weights in a format compatible with YOLO frameworks like YOLOv8, YOLOv9, or YOLOv11.

My questions are:

1. Is it possible to access the MegaDetector v6 model weights in a format that can be converted or directly used for fine-tuning with YOLO frameworks? So a model.pt file that's usable in the YOLO frame works.

2. Are there any guidelines or tools available for converting the MegaDetector v6 weights into a YOLO-compatible format?

3. If not, is there a recommended pipeline or alternative for using MegaDetector’s capabilities in a YOLO-based workflow?

Any help, suggestions, or resources would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you in advance for your guidance!

Additional

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