Conservationists Using Drone Technology In Fight Against Poaching
Conservationists in Africa have begun introducing drone technology in Africa to help park rangers get a leg up against poachers in regions where rhino’s and elephants roam and are vulnerable.
About a year ago, Google donated US$5 million to the WWF to search for new ways to deter and detect wildlife crime.
Conservationists in Namibia are about to start a drone program combined with a variety of other tracking technologies in some of the country’s national parks according to WWF officials.
The illegal wildlife trade of which the trade in illicit ivory and rhino horns is part of is thought to be worth as much as $10 billion. With huge profits available poachers have begun to adopt high technology such as silenced weapons and night vision goggles. Some poaching rings have even made use of helicopters in their hunt for some of the most threatened mammals in the world.
This means the fight against poaching is not a level playing field for poorly equipped park rangers in Namibia who have to manage vast areas that are supposed to be protected. Etosha National Park for example is the size of New Jersey says Crawford Allan who heads up the WWF’s Wildlife Crime Technology Project.
One of the harder challenges facing rangers is catching poachers at night, but Mr. Allan hopes that a fleet of Falcon Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s) will provide some much needed assistances. All the drones are kitted up with thermal sensors and night vision and should help ranger’s spot poachers as well as monitor the animals in real time.
“We were standing just 50 feet away from a giraffe at night and we didn’t know,” Allan told Live Science. But in the video footage beamed down from one of the Falcon drones overhead, the team could see the white glow of the animal. That’s what it’s like for rangers; they could be literally feet away from poachers and just not know they’re there,” Mr. Allan said.
A powerful payload
Each drone costs approximately $20,000 Mr. Allan says but this includes its cameras and other equipment. It takes just as few minutes to assemble and then launch the vehicle for an autonomous flight. The drones are battery powered which makes them absolutely silent and can fly for 90 minutes at a time for roughly 19 kilometers before landing by parachute.
The UAV’s are connected to the internet by satellite which gives them the ability to stream video life which can be accessed from any type of computer or tablet anywhere in the world.
