Can Drones Help Tackle Africa’s Wildlife Poaching Crisis?

Can Drones Help Tackle Africa’s Wildlife Poaching Crisis?

BBCNews/Getty Images

Anti-poacher drones will complement rather than replace sniffer dogs and teams of armed, GPS-tagged rangers connected by a digital radio system, BBCNews reports.

Interest in anti-poacher drones is global and rapid advances in drone technology will play a significant role in anti-poaching and wildlife conservation, according to the report – but only as part of an integrated, ground-to-air tracking and surveillance system.

A low-cost drone competition – the Wildlife Conservation UAV Challenge — has received nearly 140 entries.

The winners will be announced in November, and their drones will be tested in South Africa’s Kruger National Park.

“Kruger National Park is ground zero for poachers,” said Crawford Allan, spokesman for the World Wildlife Fund’s crime technology project. “There are 12 gangs in there at any time. It’s almost like a war zone.”

A Kenyan 90,000-acre reserve, Ol Pejeta Conservancy specializes in protecting white and black rhinos. Ol Pejeta has teamed up with San Francisco-based tech Airware, which makes drone autopilot systems.

“With the blessing of the Kenya Wildlife Service we did 10 days of testing,” said Robert Breare, Ol Pejeta’s chief commercial officer, in a BBC interview.

Park rangers can operate the drone via two laptops, one showing the drone’s point of view through a high-definition camera and the other showing a map tracking the flight path.

Thermal imaging cameras mean the drone can also fly at night, with the operators able to differentiate the shapes of animals.

Based on testing, they can even see how the elephants’ trunks changed temperature as they sucked up water from a trough.

With a wingspan of less than a meter, the catapult-launched test drone flew at an altitude of about 500 feet.

“You hardly see or notice it,” Breare said. “We don’t want to startle the wildlife… or the tourists.”

Killing rhinos for their horn and elephants for their tusks is a multi-million dollar business with Asia driving demand. The trade is threatening Africa’s wildlife tourism industry.

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Kenya Poachers Kill Four Rhinos in Worst Attack in Three Decades

Kenya Poachers Kill Four Rhinos in Worst Attack in Three Decades

Poachers killed four rhinos at a game reserve in central Kenya, the highest number of the animals slaughtered in a single attack in 26 years, the Kenya Wildlife Service said.

The assailants struck on July 9 at the closely held Ol Jogi Ranch, about 225 kilometers (140 miles) north of the capital, Nairobi, spokesman Paul Muya said in an e-mailed statement today. The deaths bring the number of rhinos killed by poachers so far this year to 22 and reduce the number of the animals left in Kenya to 1,037, he said.

“There is a serious appetite for animal horns not just for the rhino, but the elephant as well from the Asian market,” Muya said “This should explain the escalation of poaching as witnessed in the recent past.”

Full story at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-14/kenya-poachers-kill-four-rhinos-in-worst-attack-in-three-decades.html

#Kenya #Africa #rhino

Image: Archive image of rhino killed by poaches in Nairobi National Park, Kenya (c) AP

Kenya: the Maasai Mara faces a fight for survival'

Terrorist attacks in Kenya are having a crippling effect on tourist numbers, which could lead to the loss of 200,000 acres of a vital ecosystem, writes Graham Boynton

Conservationists in Kenya fear that the stay-away by international tourists following the recent wave of terrorist attacks threatens to turn some of the country’s fabled wildlife reserves into farmlands. Under the gravest threat are conservancies adjacent to the greater Maasai Mara reserve and operators there describe the situation as “dire”.

I have just returned from a visit to the Maasai Mara, arguably Africa’s most famous wildlife habitat, as it heads for the peak safari season, and although the camps and lodges were reasonably busy, according to Gerard Beaton, Kenyan country manager of Asilia, the safari camp operator, there has been a 30 per cent drop in tourism since the series of bombings in the country’s coastal towns and the subsequent US State Department and UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) travel advisories.

The FCO advises against all but essential travel to the Kenyan coast and also to “low-income areas of Nairobi” while making it clear this warning does not include or affect transit through Nairobi airport. However, the US State Department announced last month it was evacuating some of its Nairobi embassy staff, warning that “the US government continues to receive information about potential terrorist threats aimed at the US, Western and Kenyan interests in Kenya.”