Africa Wild

Using drones to benefit wildlife

Could unmanned aerial vehicles make the difference in wildlife surveillance and protection, asks Russell Hughes.

Drone technology has already made a splash in the front pages, usually for its destructive power. Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are either controlled from ‘pilots’ on the ground, or follow pre-programmed flight missions. The military has been using UAVs to drop bombs on the enemy for years – but the technology can also be a protector, and a force for good.

In the field of wildlife conservation, it has the potential to be the next breakthrough in the fight to protect and help those who cannot help themselves. From the windswept beauty of the Northumberland coast to the sunbaked plains of Africa, drones are making a positive impact.



Coquet Island in Northumberland

Nestled just over a mile off the coast of Northumberland is Coquet Island, which is a RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) reserve. Dr Paul Morrison, site manager on the island, thinks that drone technology will prove to be extremely useful.
“There is huge potential for helping with monitoring of the nesting bird species on Coquet,” he says.

“In particular it would be very useful to help find large gull chicks that hide in the dense vegetation on the island, using an infra red camera. It would be interesting to see if a small loudspeaker could be attached to use as a scaring method for playing alarm calls to frighten large gulls from the island in spring and autumn,” Dr Morrison concluded.

The rhinos at Kruger National Park need urgent protection

However, it is the drone’s potential to protect that has got conservationists most excited. Around 8,000 miles away on the plains of the Kruger National Park in South Africa, there is a much bigger problem at hand – poaching. The grim statistics show that 747 rhinos have been killed in 2014 alone, according to the South African Department of Environmental Affairs.
But unless technology is designed to lower the price of hardware and improve the performance of such drones, their use will be beyond the budget of most parks.

That’s where the Wildlife Conservation UAV Challenge comes in. It’s a competition that was founded to ‘foster innovation and invention in the design, fabrication, and utilisation of unmanned aircraft to assist with counter poaching and illicit wildlife trafficking.’ Its aim is to design low cost UAVs that can be deployed over rough terrain, detect and locate poachers and communicate that information to park rangers. In short, it was designed to combat the technical problems that overcome the drones currently on the market.



The vast distances in Kruger NP would necessitate a huge expense in drone technology currently

Aliyah Pandolfi founder/director of the wcUAVc, says: “The drones that exist can’t have an impact, especially in the Kruger because of its size. There is no drone that can cope with those distances that reserves can purchase because of the high price. My key thinking was how to bring the cost down, because Kruger isn’t going to be able to afford hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“Our goal is to provide a fleet of drones that includes a strategic aircraft, as well as several tactical aircraft, for under $100,000. These would be the latest and greatest solutions, but they don’t exist right now.”

However, South Africa can be a fragile place, and with unemployment hovering at around 25 per cent there could be fears that jobs, already hard to come by, could be made obsolete by the new technology. Not so, says Pandolfi: “One thing that rangers need to understand is that drones are not meant to take their jobs away, they are meant to make it easier.

“I’d like to convey to rangers that this is going to help your job, and it’s going to allow you to do it better in terms of protecting wildlife.”


Being able to observe the bush in countries like Botswana from above could give rangers a big advantage

Poaching is a worldwide problem, which extends through nearly any area that has animals of worth. Luke Riggs, the owner of the Old House game lodge in Kasane, Botswana, says that he has even encountered the victims of poachers while out conducting game drives for his guests.

“When I did some hunting, I had a few incidents where we did find poached animals. That was just a matter of reporting it and spending a bit of time with the anti-poaching units. We tried our best to capture the poachers but had no success,” he says.

“With regards to the use of drones, this will be new to me. I have seen some military drones here in Botswana and I hear they were used mostly for anti-poaching, and I think it’s a great idea.”

Nepal has recently carried out trials to see what impact UAVs could have in helping them combat poaching, and the authorities there are very excited about the possibilities. General Krishna Acharya of Nepal's Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation said in a press release: “Nepal is committed to stopping wildlife crime, which is robbing Nepal of its natural resources, putting the lives of rangers and local communities at risk, and feeding into global criminal networks.
“Technologies like these non-lethal UAVs could give our park rangers a vital advantage against dangerously armed poachers.”

The main problem in the short term is the law, which currently works against those on the side of drones. At the moment, South African law prohibits the use of UAVs, but a review is underway with the hope that the law will be rewritten by March 2015.

Laws are similar around Africa, were there have been examples of governments grounding operations such as the Flying Donkey Challenge, which wants to develop drones that can fly heavy cargo over long distances, and the Ol Pejeta Conservancy’s wildlife surveillance drone.

There have only been 232 arrests of poachers in South Africa, which means that for every person arrested for poaching, three animals are slaughtered.

The law has been slow to catch up with technology, and is stalling an industry that could provide real help to not only catch poachers, but to tip the balance of risk and reward away from the people carrying out these acts and in the favour of the authorities – and most importantly, the animals.

A Bengal Tiger in Nepal

Rangers would be only too happy to have drones, in fact drones are already working!

They won't lose their jobs, and have other things to do!

Jan 13 2015 13:53 Paul Burkhardt

Johannesburg - South Africa National Parks (SANParks) has issued a tender to sell as many as 200 rhinos to private buyers so that they can be moved to areas where they are safer from poachers who last year killed a record number of the animals.

“A tender process has been put out,” Gerry Swan, a SANParks board member and chairperson of its conservation and tourism committee, said in a telephone interview today. The possible destinations of the rhinos are being evaluated and the “movement of rhino will start in March,” he said.

In a bid to protect the species, the government has deployed the military to Kruger National Park, have stepped up prosecutions of poachers and has moved 50 rhinos to safer areas within Kruger and other national parks.

Kruger borders Mozambique, providing an opportunity for many poachers to enter the park from that country.

READ: Rhino sale: Make your bid now

The rhino are hunted with automatic rifles, often by the light of the full moon, their horns sawn off and sold to buyers in China and Vietnam where powdered horn is believed to cure cancer among other ailments.

An annual record of 1 020 rhinos, or about 5% of the total population, had been killed in 2014 by November 20, the Department of Environmental Affairs said in a statement. Final figures for 2014 are yet to be released.

A company associated with billionaire Christoffel Wiese was among buyers refunded R14m in deposits last year after a contract to buy the animals from SANParks was found to be unauthorised.

Wiese is worth $6.1bn and is South Africa’s fourth- richest man, according to Bloomberg Billionaires. He owns a reserve in South Africa’s remote Northern Cape province.

South Africa is home to both white and black rhinos, with the bigger white variety making up most of the population.

Once again, it leaves a sour taste when profit is involved. Those who can safely accommodate rhino in this emergency should just have to pay for transport, for example?

Thanks, Sprocks.

It is not even worth a comment

Richprins wrote:Once again, it leaves a sour taste when profit is involved. Those who can safely accommodate rhino in this emergency should just have to pay for transport, for example?

Thanks, Sprocks.

They will argue that the money coming out of the sales is needed for the battle against the poaching and that every Rand earned will of course flow back into the cause...

Do they really think that the majority of the population is that stupid?............

An interesting / positive initiative in the war against poachers. I hope 2015 is the year when we can start to reverse the trend.

https://theconversation.com/satellites- ... rica-36638

Satellites, mathematics and drones take down poachers in Africa

Our team at the University of Maryland’s Institute for Advanced Computer Studies has created a new multifaceted approach to combat poaching in Africa and Asia. We devise analytical models of how animals, poachers and rangers simultaneously move through space and time by combining high resolution satellite imagery with loads of big data – everything from moon phases, to weather, to previous poaching locations, to info from rhinos' satellite ankle trackers – and then applying our own algorithms. We can predict where the key players are likely to be, so we can get smart about where to deploy rangers to best protect animals and thwart poachers.

The real game changer is our use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones, which we have been flying in Africa since May 2013. We’ve found that drones, combined with other more established technology tools, can greatly reduce poaching – but only in those areas where rangers on the ground are at the ready to use our data.

Thank you Mike

Do they have the money and the approval of Sanparks?? Unfortunately I have my doubts on both, as they could have done so much years ago, but have not!! The last invention of selling the rhinos to protect them, does not convince me one bit

This one is the way to use the new technologies and DO SOMETHING SERIOUS ABOUT POACHING. With all the money that various ONG have collected (who knows where they have all gone) and the ones collected by Sanparks and the ones the government (so they say) have collected it should be a girls game to beat the poachers.........or not?

Don't stop at Mike's quote, go and read the rest! Just another tiny piece...

In the past 10 years, the poaching of elephants and rhinos has increased exponentially, primarily because it’s a very lucrative criminal business. Rhino horns can fetch more than US$500,000 or over $50,000 per kilogram – this is more than the cost of any illegal narcotic – and a pair of elephant tusks can reach US$125,000. Most of these illegal activities are run by Asian criminal syndicates and there are well-founded beliefs that some of these proceeds are being funneled to political extremists in Africa.

OK! I'll quote it all!

Satellites, mathematics and drones take down poachers in Africa



In 2014, 1,215 rhinos were killed in South Africa for their horns, which end up in Asia as supposed cures for a variety of ailments. An estimated 30,000 African elephants were slaughtered last year for their tusks to be turned into trinkets. The world loses three rhinos a day and an elephant every 15 minutes. Simply stated, this is an unsustainable situation.

Our team at the University of Maryland’s Institute for Advanced Computer Studies has created a new multifaceted approach to combat poaching in Africa and Asia. We devise analytical models of how animals, poachers and rangers simultaneously move through space and time by combining high resolution satellite imagery with loads of big data – everything from moon phases, to weather, to previous poaching locations, to info from rhinos' satellite ankle trackers – and then applying our own algorithms. We can predict where the key players are likely to be, so we can get smart about where to deploy rangers to best protect animals and thwart poachers.

The real game changer is our use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones, which we have been flying in Africa since May 2013. We’ve found that drones, combined with other more established technology tools, can greatly reduce poaching – but only in those areas where rangers on the ground are at the ready to use our data.



A rhino with her highly desirable horn. Thomas Snitch, CC BY-NC-ND

Scope of the problem

In the past 10 years, the poaching of elephants and rhinos has increased exponentially, primarily because it’s a very lucrative criminal business. Rhino horns can fetch more than US$500,000 or over $50,000 per kilogram – this is more than the cost of any illegal narcotic – and a pair of elephant tusks can reach US$125,000. Most of these illegal activities are run by Asian criminal syndicates and there are well-founded beliefs that some of these proceeds are being funneled to political extremists in Africa.

Being smart about deploying technology

Technology is a marvelous tool but it must be the right solution for a particular problem. Engineering solutions that might work with the US military looking for people planting IEDs in Afghanistan will not necessarily work in the African bush, at night, searching for poachers. The most challenging question about how UAVs are used in Africa is when and where to fly them.



Different types of UAVs work in various challenging situations. Thomas Snitch, CC BY-NC-ND

Africa is too big to be simply launching small drones into the night sky with the hope of spotting rhinos or poachers by chance. This is where the analytical models come into play. Based on our models, we know, with near 90% certainty, where rhinos are likely to be on a particular night between 6:30 and 8:00, prime time for killings. At the same time, by mathematically recreating the environment when previous poachings have occurred, we have a very good idea of when and where poachers are likely to strike.

We don’t have to find poachers, we just need to know where the rhinos are likely to be.

For example, a large proportion of poachings occur on the days around a full moon; it makes sense since that’s when poachers can easily see their prey. In one area where we have months of experience, we discovered that nearly every poaching occurred with 160 meters of a road. It’s simple. The poachers are driving the perimeter of the park in the late afternoon spotting animals near the park fence; they return just after sundown, kill the animal and drive away. We pile on the data, and the algorithms do the rest.



Topical satellite image of the terrain rangers are trying to cover. Thomas Snitch, CC BY-NC-ND

Data informs on-the-ground rangers

The key is that the satellites, the analytics and math, and the UAVs are integrated into a solutions package. We crunch the data, and the model tells us precisely where we should deploy our rangers, on any specific night, so they will be in front of the rhinos and can intercept the poachers before they reach the target animal. After all, there’s no value in rangers patrolling parts of the park that these animals are unlikely to ever visit. Consider that South Africa’s Kruger National Park is the size of the state of New Jersey. Like a bank robber who robs banks because that’s where the money is, we want our rangers to be near the rhinos because that’s where the poaching is.

On our first UAV flight in South Africa, the UAV flew to our pre-determined spot and immediately found a female rhino and her calf; they were within 30 meters of a major road. We decided to circle the drone over the rhinos and within minutes a vehicle stopped at the park’s fence. Three individuals exited the car and began to climb the fence to kill the rhinos. Our rangers had been pre-deployed to the area; they arrested the three poachers in under 3 minutes. This episode has been repeated dozens of times over the past 20 months.

The most critical issue is not how far or how long a UAV can fly but how fast can a ranger be moved, in the bush at night, to successfully intercept poachers. The UAVs are simply our eyes in the night sky. Watching their live infrared video streams, we move our rangers as if they were chess pieces. Even with great math, we have some variance and that means we might be 200 meters off a perfect positioning. The UAVs can see poachers at least 2 kilometers from the rhinos. So we have 45 minutes to move our people into the most optimal position – based on our real world trials on how quickly they can move through the bush at night.


A poacher’s confiscated homemade gun. Thomas Snitch, CC BY-NC-ND

We’ve had hundreds of night flights with over 3,000 flight hours in the past 20 months and here is what we’ve learned. First, on the first few days after we begin operating in a new area, we arrest a number of poachers and they’re being prosecuted to the fullest extent of local laws.

Second, our models are heuristic in that they are constantly learning and self-correcting, on the lookout for changes in the patterns they’ve identified. This is critical since poachers will try to change their behavior once they learn that they are at an extremely high risk of apprehension. The sheer number of animals being killed shows us that, up until the UAVs take to the air, most poachers have been able to operate with impunity.

The most important finding is that in every area where we have put our solutions package to work and the UAVs are flying, poaching stops with 5 to 7 days. Period – it stops. Tonight we are flying in a very challenging area in southern Africa – we don’t identify our flight operations so as not to alert the poachers – and over the past 90 days, there has not been one single poaching incident. Four months ago, this region was losing several rhinos a week.



Inside the mobile unit. Collaboration between high tech data collectors and on-the-ground local experts is key. Thomas Snitch, CC BY-NC-ND

The good news is that we have proof of concept and proof on the ground that UAVS can make a tremendous difference. The bad news is that the poachers are moving to regions where we are not operating. To really address the challenges of poaching in the region, all the nations in southern Africa should be willing at least to test our system in their most critically endangered areas.

Our solution to the poaching problem lies in the combination of satellite monitoring, great math, properly positioned rangers and UAVS flying precise flight paths. It works.