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So it doesn't detect poachers, it detects humans. And it requires drones flying non-stop over gigantic masses of land. Edit: having dabbled in this field mysel

So it doesn't detect poachers, it detects humans. And it requires drones flying non-stop over gigantic masses of land. Edit: having dabbled in this field myself during my studies, I know from research that one of the biggest problems is simply corruption among rangers. It doesn't really matter if you can spot a poacher if a whole group of rangers will decide to not do anything about it (because for them the financial incentive of doing nothing can be HUGE). Of course the corruption problem stems from very low incomes and poor living conditions in those countries. If your monthly income is $100, it's quite tempting to accept a $10.000 bribe. Edit 2: I worked on this: https://www.hackthepoacher.com/ https://www.hackthepoacher.com/. We tried it with cell phone detection.

cultofmetatron 4y ago
also, drones cause major distress to elephants. it sounds like bees to them. its a major reason you are not allowed to fly them in chiang mai.
orangepurple 4y ago
If the US rented a Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk equipped with appropriate imaging systems to these governments the poaching game might change. Lesser reliance on corrupt rangers. Unfortunately I doubt these things make financial sense in the name of conservation
jjtheblunt 4y ago
So pay rangers more, with bonus incentives to capture or kill poachers, wanted dead or alive like famous wild west posters from the 1800s?
elp 4y ago
This was pretty much what the owner of small game park told me. The drones are too high tech and expensive for them to run. He said having small teams patrol every night worked better. When the teams haven't been able to patrol, for example due to flooded roads. He said it only took a couple of weeks before the poachers started showing up again. I always wonder if the better solution isn't to re-legalize ivory and rhino horn. All the game farms have room full of the stuff. Dumping that onto the market will kill the price, at the same time there is suddenly a financial incentive to keep the animals safe. Currently its $10k a horn on the black market vs a bit of tourism money to incentivize keeping the parks safe. The saddest part is that horn and tusks grow back so it could be a renewable resource if farmed properly. The poachers only kill.
- spiffytech 4y ago
  > Dumping that onto the market will kill the price I read a story a while back that some folks are dumping synthetic ivory onto the market to make prices fall.
  - beebeepka 4y ago
    God bless them. I don't what makes people want ivory in the first place. Pure evil
  - Kranar 4y ago
    This ends up making the situation worse. Legalization substantially increases demand far beyond what can be produced legally and ironically the value actually goes up and results in even more of the illegal product being produced. Furthermore it now becomes very difficult to distinguish between the legal and illegal product, providing criminals with an easy cover to launder the product. https://www.nber.org/papers/w22314 https://www.nber.org/papers/w22314 Statistics Canada has reported that after the legalization of weed, the black market has actually grown quite substantially (in absolute terms). https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/research-data/canadian-cannabis-survey-2021-summary.html https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medica... At any rate, the point is that making things legal or available can often paradoxically significantly increase demand for the illegal product and in the process make it much easier for the black market to operate. And just to add in some controversy to the discussion, the same is true of prostitution. Almost all places that have legalized prostitution also have significantly higher rates of human trafficking including underage prostitutes.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  > I always wonder if the better solution isn't to re-legalize ivory and rhino horn. All the game farms have room full of the stuff. Dumping that onto the market will kill the price, at the same time there is suddenly a financial incentive to keep the animals safe. Until that stock runs out and then it is back to square #1.
  - 4y ago
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
But it was a teenage girl who "solved" something you engineers couldn't, so take that! I always found it funny, how journalists manage to take something a kid did, without knowing the specifics, and inflate the story, just because a kid did it. Even if it's useless in real world, and the people working on that professionally, could already tell you that... Sometimes it's even a direct scam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otjvUz7qKXc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otjvUz7qKXc
- xwdv 4y ago
  I’m not surprised someone wrote this article, I’m just disappointed it managed to get upvoted so highly on HN. I will flag it.
  - remram 4y ago
    Sure, break two HN guidelines in one go. > If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it > If you flag, please don't also comment that you did
    - swayvil 4y ago
      To be fair, accusing people of breaking guidelines also breaks guidelines. Better to insert your concerns into inscrutable flaghole.
  - rvz 4y ago
    Exactly. Garbage articles only intended for ad money and clickbait for the naive on read as far as the headline and it turns out the solution is worse than projected. Even this article was posted a day late for slow news day.
- throw__away7391 4y ago
  This kind of behavior puts a lot of pressure on kids for the amusement of adults as well.
- orangepurple 4y ago
  The worst one I know of is the free energy kid featured on an episode of Elecroboom (YouTube). The parents are clearly supporting the kid's delusion which makes it even worse.
network2592 4y ago
A better solution could be hacking the supply side by flooding the market with fake ivory indistinguishable from real ivory. The price of ivory should go down. There will be less financial incentive for the poaching and bribing. Some biologists are working on this angle [1]. [1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/faking-elephant-ivory-180963226/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/faking-elephan...
- Maursault 4y ago
  This. But also putting a bounty on poachers that exceeds the value of ivory, make killing poachers so profitable that for every poacher, there are 20 bounty hunters. Also, education. Also, counter intelligence (ingrain societies that value ivory with rumors that touching ivory causes flaccidity and ruins libido, which is highly contagious, etc.) Also, why don't we just take all the elephants and rhinos from them, establish them in the American west? We can deal with the ecological issues.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    > We can deal with the ecological issues. This is a refrain heard so often (as a wild herd of fifty thousand elephants goes trumpeting through downtown Salt Lake City).
    - Maursault 4y ago
      13,000 years ago, very elephant-like creatures roamed N. America.[1] So the ecological issues are not going to be a big problem. Besides, elephants stampeding through Salt Lake City is not an example of an ecological issue. Call Animal Control. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomphothere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomphothere
  - Verdex 4y ago
    "No, no, poaching elephants is actually really safe." "But, but the bounty? Poacher heads go for ten times what ivory goes for." "That, look, scary stories that the government has to tell to make the voters think that they're doing something to help those poor defenseless elephants. Scare tactics. Think about it, if they really were going to do anything about the poachers, then they wouldn't be putting up some bounty against poaching. It's an admission that they can't and they won't do anything to stop us. Besides, factory has been shut down for three weeks and isn't opening any time soon. You want to put food on the table or not?" <LATER> A rifle shot rings out across the early morning plains. An elephant collapses to the ground and breathes its last breath. "Change of plans Fred, we've got video evidence that you just poached an elephant. I hear poacher heads go for ten times what ivory does." "You said the bounty was nothing but propaganda!" "Yeah, good thing there's no bounty on liars." A second rifle shot rings out across the early morning plains. "Now, sure would be a shame if all that ivory goes to waste."
Someone 4y ago
Its not only the money. Rangers get shot at, even killed, by poachers every now and then (Botswana’s “shoot to kill” policy won’t have helped there) Also, like corruption, poaching also stems from very low incomes and poor living conditions in those countries.
kkjjkgjjgg 4y ago
px43 4y ago
It sounds to me like the group she's working with is already running these drones, and they're currently digging through the video manually. That's where she got all the training data to make these tools. Maybe it's not the most effective way to hunt for poachers, but it seems to be *one* way that poachers are hunted, and a way that has some obvious room for improvement by sprinkling on a bit of ML magic.
1234letshaveatw 4y ago
This seems overly cynical. If you detect that someone is messing about with the bank door after hours you can't be certain that it is a robber, but it is still helpful to know. I also doubt all the rangers are corrupt. There is no reason to let perfect be the enemy of good here.

cultofmetatron 4y ago

also, drones cause major distress to elephants. it sounds like bees to them. its a major reason you are not allowed to fly them in chiang mai.

orangepurple 4y ago

If the US rented a Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk equipped with appropriate imaging systems to these governments the poaching game might change. Lesser reliance on corrupt rangers. Unfortunately I doubt these things make financial sense in the name of conservation

jjtheblunt 4y ago

So pay rangers more, with bonus incentives to capture or kill poachers, wanted dead or alive like famous wild west posters from the 1800s?

elp 4y ago

This was pretty much what the owner of small game park told me. The drones are too high tech and expensive for them to run. He said having small teams patrol every night worked better. When the teams haven't been able to patrol, for example due to flooded roads. He said it only took a couple of weeks before the poachers started showing up again. I always wonder if the better solution isn't to re-legalize ivory and rhino horn. All the game farms have room full of the stuff. Dumping that onto the market will kill the price, at the same time there is suddenly a financial incentive to keep the animals safe. Currently its $10k a horn on the black market vs a bit of tourism money to incentivize keeping the parks safe. The saddest part is that horn and tusks grow back so it could be a renewable resource if farmed properly. The poachers only kill.

spiffytech 4y ago
> Dumping that onto the market will kill the price I read a story a while back that some folks are dumping synthetic ivory onto the market to make prices fall.
- beebeepka 4y ago
  God bless them. I don't what makes people want ivory in the first place. Pure evil
- Kranar 4y ago
  This ends up making the situation worse. Legalization substantially increases demand far beyond what can be produced legally and ironically the value actually goes up and results in even more of the illegal product being produced. Furthermore it now becomes very difficult to distinguish between the legal and illegal product, providing criminals with an easy cover to launder the product. https://www.nber.org/papers/w22314 https://www.nber.org/papers/w22314 Statistics Canada has reported that after the legalization of weed, the black market has actually grown quite substantially (in absolute terms). https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/research-data/canadian-cannabis-survey-2021-summary.html https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medica... At any rate, the point is that making things legal or available can often paradoxically significantly increase demand for the illegal product and in the process make it much easier for the black market to operate. And just to add in some controversy to the discussion, the same is true of prostitution. Almost all places that have legalized prostitution also have significantly higher rates of human trafficking including underage prostitutes.
jacquesm 4y ago
> I always wonder if the better solution isn't to re-legalize ivory and rhino horn. All the game farms have room full of the stuff. Dumping that onto the market will kill the price, at the same time there is suddenly a financial incentive to keep the animals safe. Until that stock runs out and then it is back to square #1.
- 4y ago

ajsnigrutin 4y ago

But it was a teenage girl who "solved" something you engineers couldn't, so take that! I always found it funny, how journalists manage to take something a kid did, without knowing the specifics, and inflate the story, just because a kid did it. Even if it's useless in real world, and the people working on that professionally, could already tell you that... Sometimes it's even a direct scam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otjvUz7qKXc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otjvUz7qKXc

xwdv 4y ago
I’m not surprised someone wrote this article, I’m just disappointed it managed to get upvoted so highly on HN. I will flag it.
- remram 4y ago
  Sure, break two HN guidelines in one go. > If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it > If you flag, please don't also comment that you did
  - swayvil 4y ago
    To be fair, accusing people of breaking guidelines also breaks guidelines. Better to insert your concerns into inscrutable flaghole.
- rvz 4y ago
  Exactly. Garbage articles only intended for ad money and clickbait for the naive on read as far as the headline and it turns out the solution is worse than projected. Even this article was posted a day late for slow news day.
throw__away7391 4y ago
This kind of behavior puts a lot of pressure on kids for the amusement of adults as well.
orangepurple 4y ago
The worst one I know of is the free energy kid featured on an episode of Elecroboom (YouTube). The parents are clearly supporting the kid's delusion which makes it even worse.

network2592 4y ago

A better solution could be hacking the supply side by flooding the market with fake ivory indistinguishable from real ivory. The price of ivory should go down. There will be less financial incentive for the poaching and bribing. Some biologists are working on this angle [1]. [1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/faking-elephant-ivory-180963226/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/faking-elephan...

Maursault 4y ago
This. But also putting a bounty on poachers that exceeds the value of ivory, make killing poachers so profitable that for every poacher, there are 20 bounty hunters. Also, education. Also, counter intelligence (ingrain societies that value ivory with rumors that touching ivory causes flaccidity and ruins libido, which is highly contagious, etc.) Also, why don't we just take all the elephants and rhinos from them, establish them in the American west? We can deal with the ecological issues.
- bombcar 4y ago
  > We can deal with the ecological issues. This is a refrain heard so often (as a wild herd of fifty thousand elephants goes trumpeting through downtown Salt Lake City).
  - Maursault 4y ago
    13,000 years ago, very elephant-like creatures roamed N. America.[1] So the ecological issues are not going to be a big problem. Besides, elephants stampeding through Salt Lake City is not an example of an ecological issue. Call Animal Control. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomphothere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomphothere
- Verdex 4y ago
  "No, no, poaching elephants is actually really safe." "But, but the bounty? Poacher heads go for ten times what ivory goes for." "That, look, scary stories that the government has to tell to make the voters think that they're doing something to help those poor defenseless elephants. Scare tactics. Think about it, if they really were going to do anything about the poachers, then they wouldn't be putting up some bounty against poaching. It's an admission that they can't and they won't do anything to stop us. Besides, factory has been shut down for three weeks and isn't opening any time soon. You want to put food on the table or not?" <LATER> A rifle shot rings out across the early morning plains. An elephant collapses to the ground and breathes its last breath. "Change of plans Fred, we've got video evidence that you just poached an elephant. I hear poacher heads go for ten times what ivory does." "You said the bounty was nothing but propaganda!" "Yeah, good thing there's no bounty on liars." A second rifle shot rings out across the early morning plains. "Now, sure would be a shame if all that ivory goes to waste."

Someone 4y ago

Its not only the money. Rangers get shot at, even killed, by poachers every now and then (Botswana’s “shoot to kill” policy won’t have helped there) Also, like corruption, poaching also stems from very low incomes and poor living conditions in those countries.

kkjjkgjjgg 4y ago

px43 4y ago

It sounds to me like the group she's working with is already running these drones, and they're currently digging through the video manually. That's where she got all the training data to make these tools. Maybe it's not the most effective way to hunt for poachers, but it seems to be *one* way that poachers are hunted, and a way that has some obvious room for improvement by sprinkling on a bit of ML magic.

1234letshaveatw 4y ago

This seems overly cynical. If you detect that someone is messing about with the bank door after hours you can't be certain that it is a robber, but it is still helpful to know. I also doubt all the rangers are corrupt. There is no reason to let perfect be the enemy of good here.