We’ve published many stories here about how GPS tracking devices are used in conservation efforts around the world to help protect and study endangered wildlife species. The technology is so versatile, new ways of using it are being discovered and developed all the time. On February 13, 2014, more than 40 world leaders signed their name to a declaration to combat the illegal wildlife trade industry. One of the best ways to do this includes tracking the wildlife with GPS devices.
“The decimation of some of the world’s most iconic species through poaching and illegal wildlife crime has reached epidemic levels, particularly in the case of the African elephant. There can be no let-up in effective law enforcement on the ground to protect these species, and satellite tracking technologies are proving to be hugely helpful to wildlife managers monitoring populations,” said Charlie Mayhew MBE, Tusk Trust’s chief executive.
Once a species is declared endangered, it is protected by law. Unfortunately, simply passing a law doesn’t actually effectively stop poaching. A poacher is someone who hunts protected animals for profit. Typically, the poacher will only take a small part of the animal, like the skin of a tiger or the ivory of an elephant or a rhino, leaving the carcass to rot and waste. The skins and ivory were already valuable, due to the difficulty involved in hunting the wild beasts. However, after these animals were declared legally protected, the added risk involved drove the prices way up and into the black market.
The illegal wildlife trade industry generates around $16.7 billion every year, and the problem only seems to be getting worse. Poaching is absolutely decimating the majestic elephants and rhinos in Africa. In only the last two years, 10 percent of the African elephant population were killed for their ivory. Between 2011 and 2012, poaching of rhinos increased a whopping 43 percent. The good news is that world leaders are listening and better methods to protect endangered species are being implemented.
Volunteers and government employees do the best they can to protect elephants and rhinos in their area, but this is a very dangerous job. Due to the high profits made from poaching, people who are watching out for the animals are often caught int he cross fires. Many times the guards are unarmed, so there isn’t much that can be done if they do have the poor fortune to encounter a poacher.
Thankfully, new ways are being developed in order to protect the elephants and other endangered species with as little risk to human life as possible. “Satellites are increasingly becoming a reliable and resilient tool for monitoring and tracking wild animals,” explained Professor Nick Veck of the Satellite Applications Catapult, who’ve been teamed up with the World Wildlife Fund in Africa tracking elephants with GPS technology.
“Recent advances in satellite-based technologies are changing the face of conservation and ecology, from identifying individuals and whole populations of species to monitoring changes in global forests,” Robert Freeman, who heads the indicators and assessments unit at the Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London. “Save the Elephant is combining satellite-uplink GPS tracking collars with Google Earth imagery to continually monitor elephant populations in the wild.”
“GPS tracking can follow the movement of any animal fitted with a tracking device – including after its death. Algorithms could be developed whereby park rangers are alerted by computers to suspicious movements recorded on the tracking device,” explained UCL’s Ray Purdy. Visual technology is also being used to monitor the protected animals. In addition to drones, cameras on satellite may soon be able to detect elephants and rhinos on the ground.
Along with GPS tracking of individual animals, they are hoping to spread awareness of the plight of the rhinos and elephants through a social media program called Instant Wild. Motion-activated cameras have been placed in Kenya, Sri Lanka, Namibia, Indonesia, the U.K. and here in the U.S. which capture images of anything moving in front of the camera. The public can access these images on the website or download the app. Under each image, people are asked if they can see an animal in the photo, effectively helping with the conservation and research project.
“Some animals are going to be harder to GPS tag than others,” Purdy added. “New very high resolution (VHR) satellites increasingly allow for visual surveillance, data collection and availability on an unmatched scale. The resolution on some VHR satellites from 2015 is expected to be between 10 and 25 cm, which would be able to see elephants, rhinos and other large endangered species.”
Unfortunately, this technology tends to be very expensive. A lot of it is top of the line and recently developed. For this reason, especially in impoverished regions where some rhinos and/or elephants roam, it was necessary to appeal to the summit of world leaders. If wildlife populations are slaughtered to extinction simply because the local government couldn’t afford to properly enforce their protection, the whole world suffers a loss.
GPS Technology Used to Fight Devastating Poaching Problem
No comments:
Post a Comment