The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) received a five million dollar grant from Google to expand its use of unmanned aircraft to track and deter criminals who illegally hunt endangered animal species around the world.
WWF spokesman Lee Poston is not calling these vehicles drones, because he doesn’t want people to confuse them with the military kind. According to Poston, they are “sophisticated radio-controlled devices like hobbyists use” that can be “controlled from your iPad or other device.” But the WWF website does call them “conservation drones.”
Prior to receiving the Google grant, the WWF had already deployed trackers in Nepal’s national parks. These drones are light enough to be launched by hand and can be programmed to fly about 18 miles at a maximum elevation of 650 feet, for almost an hour. The cameras on the drones allow rangers on the ground to spot would-be poachers, especially in hard-to-reach places.
The Google funding will enable WWF to expand its drone program in Asia and Africa to protect rhinos, which are hunted for their horns; elephants, which are pursued for their tusks, and tigers, which are killed for everything from their eyes to their reproductive organs. The grant will also be used to advance wildlife tagging technology, specialized sensors, and ranger monitoring software.
The anti-poachers are exploring other high-tech measures as well. “We are looking into how to track animal parts using things like DNA,” says Poston. “So if a ranger find a rhino horn on the ground, we can figure out what happened.”
The grant is part of Google’s flagship Global Impact Award programme, which this year, is providing a total of $23 million in funding to nonprofits addressing various challenges through technology and innovation.
This grant “is going to have a huge impact,” says Ian Morrison, another WWF spokesman. “The poachers and the crime syndicates that fund them are getting more and more sophisticated, and it’s time for us to step up our game too, and level the playing field.”
Photo:Mother Jones Photo Montage
Source: Mother Jones
This is great news for the Rhinos and all the other species struggling to survive the world we have imposed upon them.
It’s a shame a little didn’t go to the very passionate International Animal Protection Foundation (IAPF). These guys, lead by Damien Mander ex-military man, have set up anti-poaching training systems and have seen the use of UAVs as an essential tool in the poaching war. I hope this organisation (and their respective sponsors) don’t give up on their individual efforts.