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This is welcome from Google, as focused aid of this sort can often have an outsize effect, but we must be careful to avoid believing this can solve the problem.
by _djo_ 14y ago
This is welcome from Google, as focused aid of this sort can often have an outsize effect, but we must be careful to avoid believing this can solve the problem.
For one, sophisticated UAVs that are much more capable than those the WWF is getting are already being used to combat rhino poaching. SANParks, the state agency responsible for South Africa's state-run national parks, has deployed the Seeker II military-spec UAV[0], ground radar, thermal imagers, cameras and dedicated teams of heavily armed rangers in the Kruger National Park, one of Africa's largest wildlife reserves. All anti-poaching resources have been placed under the command of Major General Johan Jooste, a highly-regarded retired military commander and a rewards program giving approximately US$ 10 000 to anybody whose tip-off results in the arrest of a poacher and about US$ 100 000 for a tip-off leading to the arrest of the head of a poaching syndicate has been created. At the same time the South African Army has deployed units in both the border patrol and anti-poaching role in certain parks.
These measures are all helping, but it's important to understand just what an impossible task this is. SANParks's 19 national parks alone cover 37 000 km², that's larger than Belgium, Israel, Lebanon and most US states. Moreover those 19 parks are dispersed across South Africa's 1.2 million km² and many of them are on the border of neighbouring countries from which many of these poachers come. It also doesn't include the hundreds of private wildlife reserves across the country which have been badly hit by rhino poaching. As the US has discovered on its southern border with Mexico, trying to prevent small bands of people from crossing a border this large is impossible even with UAVs, manned aircraft and massive resources.
So technology alone is not going to solve this, though it and other measures are hopefully going to help reduce the rate at which rhinos are being killed. The only long-term solution is to somehow stop the demand for rhino horn from Asia and thus remove the profit motive for poaching rhinos in the first place.
[0] The Seeker II is a 9-12 hour endurance UAV with all the standard surveillance gear such as FLIR cameras that is being provided free of charge by Denel, a South African arms manufacturer. The intention is to supplement that with a longer-ranged model, the Seeker 400, sometime next year. At the same time they're finalising development of a much smaller UAV, the Hungwe, that can be deployed by ranger teams for short-range surveillance.
- dodo53 14y agoMaybe they could follow the rhinos with UAVs to cut down on patrol-space? (or spend the money flooding the market with fake-rhino-horn?)
- _djo_ 14y agoToo many rhinos dispersed across too far a distance. Unlike elephants rhinos don't necessarily herd in large groups. Many of the rhinos killed were either alone or in a small group of 2-4. I'm not sure flooding the market with fake rhino horn is feasible as the underworld will develop its own authentication methods, but one suggestion that has been discussed is to flood the market with rhino horns from the huge stockpiles collected from rhinos who've died from natural causes in the hope that it'll lower the price and reduce the incentive to poach.
- jessriedel 14y ago> Too many rhinos dispersed across too far a distance. Unlike elephants rhinos don't necessarily herd in large groups. Many of the rhinos killed were either alone or in a small group of 2-4. My google searching suggests there are 5k-10k black rhinos in the world. Seems plausible to monitor each one with a dedicated UAV, once you take into account economies of scale.
- _djo_ 14y agoWhile it's an interesting idea, it's not just possible with today's tech. Black rhinos are only one subspecies, white rhinos are just as threatened by poaching and there are around 20 000 of those, so you're looking at around 25 000 rhinos in Africa. You'd need at least three UAVs per rhino, one on station at any given time, one ready to replace it once its endurance runs out and one spare in case something happens to one of the other two. Then there's the problem of actually tracking the rhino 24x7, through night and bad weather, while ensuring that the base station and recovery team stays close. You'd also need skilled pilots / operators to keep the UAV on station and interpret what's on the screen and, once again, you'd need more than one per rhino to enable 24x7 shifts. Once you factor in the number of UAVs, the dispersed recovery and handling teams and the need for skilled operators, you could potentially be speaking of 75 000 UAVs and a similar number of teams and pilots / operators. Even if we assume that UAVs with sufficient endurance for this task could be reduced to $500 000 each, that still results in a capital cost of nearly $40 billion, over and above the sure-to-be-mammoth operating costs. So it's not feasible. A better approach is to fit each rhino with a GPS tracker, which is being done, and to use ranger patrols augmented by technology like UAVs and ground radar to attempt to spot poachers moving in the parks. That's why this is where SANParks and others are focusing their attention and resources.